By Nina Kravinsky
The number of cows crossing into Arizona each day has nearly doubled in the less than two months the border has been reopened to live cattle imports from Mexico.
The president of the Sonoran cattleman’s union, Juan Ochoa Valenzuela, said Tuesday around 1,300 animals now cross the border daily on foot through the Agua Prieta-Douglas border crossing. He expects that number to increase to 1,500 next week.
That’s up from around 700 when the crossing reopened in August. It became the first to do so on the entire U.S.-Mexico border after a more than year-long ban on live cattle imports from Mexico to protect against the New World screwworm.
The flesh-eating parasite arrived in Sonora, the state south of Arizona, also in August, after making its way through Mexico and into Texas this summer. Arizona so far has remained screwworm-free, even as Sonora has registered more than 100 active cases.
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