The agent is designed to kill male fruit flies and is not harmful to humans, he added.
“It’s a really effective method we find,” he said. “Oriental fruit flies have been found before, but these eradication efforts have been very successful in the past, so that they don’t become established and get a foothold in the area.”
A wild fruit fly population could threaten agricultural crops, as well as vegetable and fruit trees in private yards, Pellman said.
“Hopefully, these were the only two, and that’s entirely possible because we do set up traps — there are traps everywhere — and we keep checking them for these pests, and quite often they don’t show up again,” he said.
Though Glendale has little agriculture, the pests can pose problems for plant nurseries, which could have controls put on their shipments if the area were to be quarantined over a fruit fly scare, Pellman said.
The Oriental fruit fly reportedly has the potential to wreak more havoc than the infamous Mediterranean fly, which made fleets of pesticide-dropping helicopters common sights in L.A. County about 20 years ago.
“The medfly has a certain environmental temperature range that it’s comfortable in,” said Randy Cohen, a biology professor at Cal State Northridge.
“The Oriental fruit fly seems to be a lot more adaptable, flexible in terms of habitat and things like that. It’s much more of a potential problem than the medfly will ever be.”
Oriental fruit flies, which are native to Southeast Asia and are found in Hawaii and other Pacific islands, can be brought in by travelers transporting fruits and vegetables into the continental United States, as well as in goods shipped into the country, Pellman said.
“There’s no way to know for sure, but with transportation being what it is, people travel, and they’ll bring back fruits and vegetables,” he said.
“Or relatives or friends from their country of origin will send them as gifts, or they could just stow away in cargo holds of airplanes.”
Inspections at shipping ports and airports are designed to keep harmful insects from migrating into the United States via produce, he added.
“We do have efforts to check at ports and airports and shipping to check for pests on shipment that’s entering, whether it’s fruits, vegetables or ornamental plants,” he said.
“It’s possible they can get through that way too, but we do have pretty good inspectors in that regard.”
