Bot fly larvae?

C

claws

New member
I was reading an older post on squirrel hunting a while ago and someone mentioned that squirrels can contain bot fly larvae (aka warbles) and shouldn't be eaten until after the first hard frost. I recently saw a TV show about some kids hiking through Panama. One of them had several bot fly larvae that had to be pulled from beneath the skin on his back. That may have been the worst thing I've ever seen! I was so creeped out that I felt like spending the rest of my life hiding in my bathroom with a DTD sprayer.
What is a bot fly and what do they look like? How do bot fly larvae end up under a person's skin and how can I make sure they never end up under my skin?
After watching the TV show mentioned above I assumed that if I stayed away from Panama I'd be alright. Evidently that's not the case.

Thanks, Kim
 
Freeze the meat for a week. Maybe longer.

Or just make sure your food is fully cooked. Even overcooked, just to be safe.

I hate these maggots/parasites. Why can't they just man up and fight me man to man :mad:?
 
Thanks for the link, Scorch. It seems like Mexico is the northern point of the human botfly range. This is good news since I'm not likely to visit Mexico or points south any time soon. I was considering wearing a bee keeper's suit (in camo of course:D) for all of my future hunting trips. Glad I'll be able to return to my normal hunting attire: Speedo, belly shirt, and zorries.

Kim
 
Botfly larvae are the least of your worries, when they're carrying plague. ;)


Solution to all of these diseases, parasites, vectors, and other issues:
Cook your food, and don't play with the carcasses any more than needed.
 
Squirrels in my back yard are infected with warbles from time to time. I'm in North Florida, so the range is much greater than just Mexico.
 
Don't eat the brains. There have been cases of spongiform encephalitis being found in humans that were attributed to squirrel brains. You cannot cook out the prions that bring that about. It's being found in deer, so for the love of god, don't eat deer brains, either.

If you head shoot a squirrel, I'd go ahead and pop off the head while in the field, and wash it down before dressing it. These are just reasonable precautions in the case of a disease that may take years and several generations to manifest itself.
 
WHY DID I WATCH THAT!!!!!

As for the squerls..............we see them with the larvae in the summer but they seem to survive it just fine. Ugly......thought not as bad as that guys back.
 
If you head shoot a squirrel, I'd go ahead and pop off the head while in the field, and wash it down before dressing it. These are just reasonable precautions in the case of a disease that may take years and several generations to manifest itself.
Click to expand...

If you do that, you run the risk of spreading it to other squirrels (or deer, in that case).
Contact your local Wildlife management agency, for the best handling and disposal methods.
 
good point. it doesn't spread to deer, to my knowledge, at least in theory, these all have a slightly different makeup that keeps them within the species. Deer were not supposed to come up with it, I had read, but did anyway. OTOH, it seems that humans can pick them up, so I'm not sure.

One of the most recent theories on this whole mess is that bone gatherers in india who collect human remains along the ganges ground the bones into meal that made the way into the food chain in england as feed supplements. The prion was suspected of having killed a human and remained active in the marrow, all through the harvest, processing, and eventual feeding. I'm not totally buying it.

So far, I've not heard of many cases of chronic wasting in deer around here.

Ironically, our former mayor died of it about 15 years ago.
 
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