With warm weather in the air, New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) has again increased fruit fly surveillance and trapping programmes around Auckland.
Fresh produce growers surrounding the North Island city were placed on high alert earlier this year after a single male Queensland fruit fly (Q-fly) was found in the suburb of Grey Lynn. A subsequent 13 adult Q-flies were caught over the proceeding weeks, with the last reported discovery coming in early March.
The outbreak prompted a wide-reaching response effort, with a control zone and added surveillance traps set up around the site of the initial discovery. Detection operations were scaled back over the winter months, however, the movement of fruit and vegetable lines into and out of the control zone remains restricted.
MPI planning manager Edwin Ainley told 3News New Zealand that the risk of a follow-up incursion will be heightened over the upcoming warmer months, but insists biosecurity authorities are well prepared.
“Now that the weather's warming up, if any flies did manage to survive the earlier treatment blitz, they'd be on the wing and we'd trap them in our extensive network of lure traps,” Ainley said.
To date all discoveries have been contained to the Grey Lynn control zone. MPI is hopeful the area will be declared fruit fly-free by late December.
“We can't assure our trading partners that the population is gone until the empty traps confirm our success. At this stage, we hope to declare eradication and end the movement controls on fruit and veges before Christmas,” Ainley told 3News.
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