Country: United States

Title: Bactrocera dorsalis (Oriental fruit fly) eradicated from California

Contact:
John Stewart, APHIS Fruit Fly Program Manager, at (919) 855-7426

Report: Effective late June, 2012, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) removed the Stockton area of San Joaquin County, as well as the Anaheim area of Orange and Los Angeles Counties, California, from the Oriental Fruit Fly (OFF) regulated area. As a result, there are no remaining OFF regulated areas in California.

In October, 2011, APHIS implemented and expanded the regulated area in the Stockton area of San Joaquin County and the Anaheim area of Orange and Los Angeles Counties, California, restricting the interstate movement of regulated articles in order to prevent the spread of OFF to non-infested areas of the United States. APHIS worked with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to eradicate the transient OFF population through various control actions, including high density trapping, fruit removal, regulatory and control measures, and foliar bait sprays near the detection sites.

Eradication was concluded after sufficient time passed without finding additional flies in those areas. Specifically, an intensified fruit fly trap surveillance system was deployed and monitored for three life cycles and calculated through a modeling process specific for OFF. Accordingly, APHIS removed the OFF regulated area in San Joaquin County on June 18, 2012 and in Orange and Los Angeles Counties on June 26, 2012. The removal of this regulated area is reflected on the following website, which contains a description of all the current Federal fruit fly regulated areas:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/fruit_flies/quarantine.shtml

Under IPPC standards, Bactrocera dorsalis is considered to be a pest that is absent: eradicated in the United States.
 

Posted Date: July 10, 2012, 9 a.m.