Officials Step Up Trapping After Medfly Is Found in Elysian Park

Agricultural officials have found a single Mediterranean fruit fly in a peach tree near Dodger Stadium and have stepped up trapping in an 81-square-mile area to determine whether the crop-destroying pest has again gained a foothold in Los Angeles.

But officials announced Tuesday that they do not plan to begin aerial spraying of the pesticide malathion unless they find a second fly.

The fly was discovered last Thursday in the yard of an Elysian Park home during a routine inspection of traps. At first, officials believed that it may have been a sterile fly released during a recent Medfly eradication program in West Los Angeles. It was flown to Sacramento for examination by state entomologists and was found to be fertile.

Agricultural officials called in all of its crews over the weekend to put out 800 additional traps in an area stretching as far north as Glendale to Exposition Boulevard near USC on the south. The traps near Dodger Stadium were checked Monday and Tuesday, and no flies were found. The other traps will be inspected later this week.

‘Wait and See’

“It’s hard to breathe easy at this point,” said Bob Atkins, the county’s deputy agricultural commissioner. “It doesn’t look like we have a raging population at this time. But it’s still wait and see.”

If a second fly is found, officials said they will consider imposing a quarantine, which does not allow home-grown fruits and vegetables to be removed from the area, and aerial spraying of malathion.

A 10-month effort to eradicate West Los Angeles of a Medfly infestation recently ended. The effort included flooding the neighborhood with sterile flies in order to breed the pest out of existence. The Medfly was also eradicated in Northridge last winter. The cost of both efforts was $3 million, County Agricultural Commissioner Leon Spaugy said.

Brown Blamed for Spread

The Medfly first came to prominence in California in 1981 when then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. was blamed for spreading the infestation by delaying the spraying of malathion. Eventually, the state spent $100 million to eradicate the pest, and California growers lost an additional $100 million in sales because of a quarantine.

Atkins said there is no way of knowing how the fly arrived.

“We never know,” he said. “Some person had to have it sent in with fruit or brought in fruit with it. That individual probably doesn’t even realize they started it. If they did, they wouldn’t admit it.”

There is a $10,000 fine for bringing in fruit that triggers an infestation, but Atkins Tuesday could not recall any prosecutions.

“At the end of the first month, we should have one generation completed,” Atkins said. “If there are no additional flies at that time, we’ll feel fairly comfortable that was just a lonesome guy out there looking for love.”

Description of Insect

The Medfly is slightly larger than a housefly. Its eye tends to be a darkish blue; its thorax is a glistening black with a mosaic pattern of yellowish white bands. The Medfly abdomen is yellowish with two silvery cross bands; its wings are banded and blotched with yellow, brown and black.

Spaugy urged residents to call his office if they find fruit fly larvae, a creamy white maggot, in home-grown fruit. The larvae is pointed at one end and blunt at the other, about one-fourth inch long.

In a related development, officials plan to announce today a quarantine in West Covina after the discovery last weekend of a dozen Oriental fruit flies. Workers are applying insecticide to fence posts, trees and utility poles in an effort to kill the pest.