Chemicals, Not Killer Flies, Zap O.C.’s Fire Ants

When it comes to battling the dreaded imported red fire ant, you won’t find a fighter more gung-ho than the Brazilian phorid fly. The gnat-like bug injects an egg inside the hapless ant, whose body becomes food for the hatching larva.

Other states are shipping these tiny winged assassins to the front lines of the great ant war, but not in California, where officials doubt their effectiveness. Instead, as this state enters its third year of fire-ant combat, officials are relying on an assortment of gadgets, poisons, public-service announcements and potato chips--tools they hope will ultimately rid the state of fire ants once and for all.

The reason for forgoing the flies, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Orange County Fire Ant Authority, is that they are used only in places where the larger war against the ants has been lost. The flies, they say, are effective only in keeping the ant population in check, not in obliterating it.

“These other states have given up hope of ever getting rid of these ants and so they’re looking for biological controls,” said Richard Bowen, program manager for the Orange County Fire Ant Authority. “We’re not into control. We’re into eradication.”

Last month, the fire ant authority unveiled its first fleet of “ant-killing machines”--electric golf carts and all-terrain vehicles that are used to spew treated granules over particularly rugged or large tracts of land. Bowen, a former Marine lieutenant colonel, said the vehicles greatly reduce the time required to spread the chemicals that sterilize the ants.

The vehicles were used recently to treat 1,100 sites around homes in Cypress--sites that were also added to a satellite positioning map of the county. Pest-control workers spread potato chips to lure the ants and then sprayed the area with chemicals.

“It was awesome,” Bowen said of the operation. “It was like that old television show, “The Rat Patrol.”

The venomous ants need to be eliminated, officials say, because, in large numbers, they will attack animals and people and inflict numerous, and in some cases, deadly stings. Since their arrival in California, the ants have infested Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

But even as California pursues its eradication strategy, officials and researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture say they hope California doesn’t dismiss the use of phorid flies. Although California officials insist the state’s dry weather will give them a great advantage in wiping out the moisture-loving fire ants, USDA officials say California would be the lone exception to the rule if it succeeded in eradicating the ants.

“If California’s goal right now is to rely on chemical eradication, then they have to give it a good shot,” said Rich Brenner, a research leader for the USDA’s Imported Fire Ants and Household Insects program. “If eradication should become unfeasible, the flies should be quite helpful.”

A fly swoops onto the back of a foraging ant and injects it with an egg. The egg hatches into a larva, which moves from the upper body to the ant’s head. The tissue connecting the ant’s body to the head degenerates and the head falls off. The larva turns to a pupa and continues to grow in the head until a fly emerges.

In November, the USDA began mass rearing of the flies for use in 11 Southern states. Brenner and other USDA officials insist the flies will not harm native ants or other animals, although Orange County’s Bowen and others aren’t so sure.

Some county residents who have had dealings with fire ants say they agree with the state’s desire to bypass the flies and stick with the full eradication battle plan.

Retired airline pilot and Laguna Beach resident Roger Williams said he grew to despise fire ants while living near Austin, Texas. Almost any outdoor activity, whether it was mowing the lawn, playing golf or walking the dog, would result in numerous stings.

“They were all vicious and they’d leave scars,” Williams said. “I’ve been bitten by a lot of insects, but nothing else left a scar.”

Williams said Southern Californians have yet to realize just how bothersome the insects are but will learn very soon unless they step up the poisoning program.

“I say go and poison every yard where you find those suckers,” he said. “They’ve got to protect this state.”