The 12 months since last February’s incursion in Northcote and Devonport mark the formal ending of the response that was sparked when the fly was discovered on fruit and vegetables in Devonport.
The discovery put the suburb on lock-down and coincided with the discovery of a separate fly species in Otara.
“The situation was complicated by having the parallel incursion of the Facialis fruit fly in Otara, not related to the Devonport incursion,” Fruit Fly Council chairman Stu Hutchings said.
Despite the challenge to resources and timing authorities are proving to be more adept with each incursion.
“But the one lesson from any incursion is that nothing ever follows the pattern you may expect it to.”
The ability of authorities to pool resources with companies is greater under the Government Industry Agreement for Biosecurity Readiness and that means more staff can be seconded to AsureQuality, the body contracted for dealing with the outbreak.
“This gave those staff some good hands-on experience in a response.”
It was determined a breeding population of flies had been established.
Intense surveys for larvae and destruction of tonnes of fruit showed a breeding cycle had been established but the population was eliminated.
A trapping and baiting programme using insecticide ultimately eliminated it.
Meantime, industry attention has turned to ensuring the brown marmorated stink bug does not become established over the summer.
Its impact would be as devastating as the fruit fly, estimated at $430 million on the kiwifruit sector alone. The fruit fly response cost $18m.
“We now have 33 countries that are required to treat shipments for stink bugs prior to coming to New Zealand. That is up from 16 last year, pushing a lot of the risk offshore.”
Used cars are a particularly problematic source for bug infestations and cars from Japan have to be heat treated.
“We have had the odd find in luggage at the border but no significant numbers.
“The feedback we have had from the many people who took part in the response is that they learned a lot about specialised biosecurity response activities they can take back to their own organisations and industries,” Hutching said.
NZ researchers continue to work closely with their Australian counterparts on controls including sterile male technology.
