Jan Cronje
Fin 24 (www.fin24.com)
Cape Town – The department of agriculture has called on South Africans to not remove or tamper with fruit fly trapping buckets, after Oriental Fruit Flies were discovered near the town of Grabouw in a fruit-growing area of the Western Cape.
“Their [the bucket’s] presence is essential to the national exotic fruit fly surveillance programme,” the department said in a media release.
The flies, which are native to Asia, are regarded as pests. They damage fruit by laying their eggs in them.
The department said on Monday that the first Oriental Fruit Fly specimen, a male, was detected near Grabouw on January 31 when it was caught in a trap.
The specimen was identified a day later. On February 6, a female fly was detected in the same trap. A third has since been discovered.