First Mexican Fruit Fly in 2 Years Found in L.A. County

The first Mexican fruit fly discovered in Los Angeles County since an infestation of the pest triggered an agricultural crisis two years ago has been found a short distance from the USC campus, county agriculture officials said Tuesday.

“It’s a significant find for us because it’s a serious economic fruit pest,” said William Edwards, deputy director of the Los Angeles County agriculture commissioner’s office. “It may be the first of several hundred (fruit flies) for all we know.”

Discovery of the adult female fly in a county detection trap in a loquat tree means that an intensive search will be conducted throughout the county this week to determine if the new find signals another infestation, he said.

Workers have begun laying 1,120 traps in an 81-square-mile area surrounding the find. Normally, there are five fruit fly traps per square mile in Los Angeles County.

The pale orange and yellow fly was discovered Monday morning during a routine check of a trap in the 2900 block of Brighton Avenue, Edwards said. It was then flown to Sacramento where the state Department of Food and Agriculture confirmed that it was a female Anastrepha ludens , the fly’s technical name.

Edwards said the “good news” was that the fly did not hold eggs. But on the downside, he said, agriculture officials are “looking at something that could trigger an eradication program.”

Agriculture officials spent $2.7 million between October, 1983, and August, 1984, to eradicate the fruit fly in Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, Huntington Park, Montebello, Lynwood and South Gate.

The 1983-84 infestation was fought almost solely by helicopter spraying of the pesticide malathion, a chemical compound which caused some residents to complain of sickness and to protest the spraying program.

Edwards said that if an infestation is discovered, the first option would be to release sterile fruit flies into the affected area to mate with existing female flies to prevent reproduction. The next option, he said, would be ground spraying of malathion. And the last resort, he said, would be to once again use aerial spraying.

Malathion, he said, is the “safest and most efficient material” that agriculture officials could use to combat the fruit fly.

Meanwhile, Edwards said, the public should look under the skin of home-grown fruit for white maggots, or legless worms, which hatch from a fruit fly’s eggs. If any are spotted, the public can notify county agriculture officials at 818-575-5471.