South Bay : Bait Serves as Fatal Attraction for Fruit Flies
Sex drive can be deadly, especially if you’re a male Oriental fruit fly buzzing around Wilmington and Carson.
State agricultural officials recently began spraying the tops of trees, fences and utility poles with a mixture of insecticide and a substance resembling the sexually alluring pheromones produced by female flies.
The hope is to trick the male flies into landing on the “bait site” and kill them, said Doug Hendrix of the joint state-federal program charged with eradicating fruit flies in Southern California. With males out of the way, females will die without reproducing.
Over the past several days, state workers were expected to spray roughly 9,600 sites with applications the size of 50-cent pieces. The target area encompasses about 16 square miles in both communities. The sites will be doused three more times over the next six weeks.
The eradication effort was ordered after a male Oriental fruit fly was found last month in Wilmington and a female was found in neighboring Carson earlier this month.
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