The Region : County Widens Oriental Fruit Fly War

The discovery of two male Oriental fruit flies in the Florence-Walnut Park area of Southeast Los Angeles has prompted expanded efforts to use poisoned bait to eradicate the pest, which has infested northeastern Long Beach since early September, Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner Paul Engler said. In addition to a 13-square-mile area of Long Beach and nine square miles of Lynwood where the infestation was already being fought, a new 12-square-mile zone around Florence and Walnut Park has been established “where we apply these bait stations to telephone poles and street trees and so forth,” Engler said.