Postal Workers Get Credit for Catching Fly-Infested Fruits

Announcing what they called an “enormously significant” development in efforts to curb fruit-fly infestations, state agricultural officials said Monday that two packages containing larvae were intercepted last week by alert postal workers in Santa Ana.

Five live Mediterranean fruit fly larvae were discovered in a leaking package of 20 tropical fruits known as soursops that had been set aside for rewrapping and inspection in the postal service’s regional processing center in Santa Ana, officials said. The package was mailed first-class from Honolulu to Westminster.

A second package from Hawaii containing decomposing soursop--found the same day, July 28--carried 12 live Oriental fruit fly larvae, said Gera Curry, spokeswoman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento.

“This is an enormously significant find,” Curry said Monday in announcing the confirmation by state agriculture department entomologists that the larvae were from fruit flies.

“It demonstrates what we had suspected all along: that these fruit-fly infestations are definitely connected to fruit being shipped illegally from Hawaii through the mails,” she said.

‘Debt of Gratitude’

“All Californians owe a large debt of gratitude to the workers at this postal center for their help in stopping costly infestations such as the 1980-82 Medfly infestation, which cost $100 million to eradicate,” she said.

“Had there not been this fortuitous accident, that these packages needed rewrapping, and alert postal workers, it would not have been discovered.”

Postal service distribution clerk James T. Aylward turned over the “wet, soggy” packages set aside by fellow workers to a county agricultural commission inspector after they had been found at the mail center.

“When we smell a funny odor or find a leaking package with fruit in it, we isolate it and bring it to the (county) department of agriculture,” said the self-effacing Aylward, who in June intercepted another type of contraband fruit from Hawaii that harbored other pests harmful to California crops.

Quarantine on Fruits

Soursops, a large green-skinned fruit that tastes like a cross between a mango and a pineapple, are prohibited from being mailed to California unless certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under a 76-year-old federal quarantine affecting all Hawaiian fruits and vegetables.

The quarantine, designed to protect California’s billion-dollar agricultural industry from harmful insects and diseases, was imposed in 1910 after the Mediterranean fruit fly became established in Hawaii.

Curry said state agriculture officials are working with federal authorities to prosecute those sending the illegal shipments. She declined to give names Monday.

In the case of the fruit containing Mediterranean fruit fly larvae, Curry said both the sender and addressee are private individuals who may not have been aware of the ban.

The maximum fine is $100, an amount state officials are working with congressional leaders to increase.

State agricultural officials are not certain how the 1980-82 Medfly infestation gained a foothold, but Hawaii is considered the likely source of the larvae.

“It is quite probable that it came through the mail as in this incident, or else brought in by a tourist,” Curry said.

“These tropical fruits are not readily available in California, so people occasionally call on friends or relatives to mail it to them. The consequences can be disastrous. . . . One person with one piece of infested fruit can single-handedly be responsible for starting an infestation.”

Considered the most destructive of all fruit flies, the prolific Mediterranean variety attacks more than 260 kinds of fruits, vegetables and nuts. The Oriental fruit fly is a close second, attacking more than 230 varieties of fruits, vegetables and nuts.

Both can fly several miles in a day. But Curry said it usually takes people transporting fruit to spread an infestation over large areas of the state.

Trained to Spot Problems

In an effort to halt the spread of pests by mail, postal workers are trained to spot potential problems, Orange County deputy agricultural commissioner William Amling said.

“If they suspect a package that might have fruit because of an odor or leaking,” Amling said, “they’ll set it out for our inspection daily.”

That is exactly what Aylward and his co-workers did.

When the 51-year-old Santa Ana man arrived at the mail center July 28, he found several leaking or broken packages that had been set aside by the weekend crew. A few contained decomposing fruit, so he turned them over to county agricultural inspector Travis McRobert.

He had done the same thing June 6 with a leaky parcel containing a 14-pound jack fruit, a spiny, football-shaped tropical fruit that later was found to be infested with scales and mealybugs.

But the 14-year veteran of the postal service was reluctant to take sole credit, saying, “It’s an all-out effort everybody is making.”

Still, without visible signs of fruit inside a package, postal workers cannot hope to intercept all contraband fruit and vegetables.

The real key, Curry said, is public awareness.

“People think it’s OK if they put ‘just one mango or one soursop’ in their bag to take home,” she said. “They need to be reminded of the harm that can cause.”