Significant work continues in the Auckland suburb of Papatoetoe, with no signs of any further Oriental fruit flies to date, said Mike Inglis, Biosecurity New Zealand Commissioner North.

“We have placed more than 100 extra traps in the area, and checking of all of them has not found any signs of other fruit flies so far,” Inglis said.

 “Specialist staff in our mobile laboratory, which is set up at our response base in Auckland, have been hard at work examining fruit and vegetables collected from within Zones A and B. They’ve processed more than 100kg of fruit so far and we’ve found no larvae or eggs, which helps to provide assurance that we are not dealing with a breeding population.”

Inglis thanked the community for its efforts and sector groups for their support.

“We’ve surveyed more than 500 local properties and the fruit grown on them, and we’ll continue to talk to residents, local businesses, and groups, including attending local markets over the weekend to provide information to people. The response from the community is greatly appreciated.

“We have more than 150 people working on the response and a good system in place for how to do things thanks to the 12 previous times we have found and successfully eradicated different fruit flies in New Zealand,” Inglis said.

For more information about the fruit fly response please see here.