3 Medflies Found in Pasadena

Three fertile Mediterranean fruit flies have been discovered in the back yard of a home in Pasadena, agricultural officials said Thursday.

“It is very likely that we will find more flies, but until we see what the traps produce, there is really no way to predict whether we’re dealing with an isolated case or a more serious infestation,” said Bill Edwards, chief deputy of the county Agricultural Commission.

The adult Medflies, two males and a female, were trapped Wednesday in an apple tree in the Hastings Ranch area of northeast Pasadena during a routine inspection, Edwards said.

Authorities on Thursday began placing about 1,000 traps in a square-mile area where the crop-damaging Medflies were discovered. Officials expect to have another 1,000 traps set up in an 81-square-mile area of the San Gabriel Valley by the weekend, Edwards said.

Eradication crews were to start ground-spraying the pesticide malathion today within a 200-meter radius of the yard in the 1100 block of Coronet Avenue where the flies were discovered, authorities said.

The discovery comes just as county agricultural officials were preparing to announce the end of a quarantine of the Koreatown-Country Club Park area of Los Angeles, declared last October after about two dozen Medflies were discovered there.

About 50 million sterile Medflies per week have been released over a 46-square-mile area in the Koreatown area since last December, and no new fertile flies have been discovered there since early this year, authorities said. Officials believe the Pasadena discovery is a separate outbreak and not an extension of the Los Angeles infestation.

State and county officials said there were no immediate plans to use aerial malathion spraying but did not rule out the possibility.