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Palo Alto Pests: The 1981 Medfly Invasion
Author: Atari
Date: 03-26-2024 - 20:31
Steve Wrote:
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> It won't last...Just like the Medfly in 80s.
Palo Alto Pests: The 1981 Medfly Invasion
California’s medfly morass began on June 5th, 1980 when two medflies were found in a trap in San Jose. Medflies (not native to the U.S.) are among the peskiest of all Earth’s bugs. By laying their eggs under the skin of a wide variety of popular fruits, medfly larvae are born inside the fruit, become maggots and destroy it. Agriculturalists were quick to point out that a medfly outbreak was capable of completely ravaging the state’s 14 billion dollar agricultural industry and the California economy as a whole. As the medfly began to be found in increasingly wide circles, California decided to wage war on the intruding insect.
They began with the implementation of the so-called “Sterile Insect Technique.” Since female medflies only mate once, local governments flooded the Bay Area with some 1.3 billion sterile males. 2,000 workers also went door-to-door stripping trees of fruit and 62,000 backyards were sprayed an average of 6 times each. It even became a crime not to strip your fruit trees, punishable by a $500 fine and up to 6 months in jail. The National Guard was called in to help oversee the process. By June 1981, it seemed that the medfly battle had been won.
But suddenly, the medfly was back with abandon. ...
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> It won't last...Just like the Medfly in 80s.
Palo Alto Pests: The 1981 Medfly Invasion
California’s medfly morass began on June 5th, 1980 when two medflies were found in a trap in San Jose. Medflies (not native to the U.S.) are among the peskiest of all Earth’s bugs. By laying their eggs under the skin of a wide variety of popular fruits, medfly larvae are born inside the fruit, become maggots and destroy it. Agriculturalists were quick to point out that a medfly outbreak was capable of completely ravaging the state’s 14 billion dollar agricultural industry and the California economy as a whole. As the medfly began to be found in increasingly wide circles, California decided to wage war on the intruding insect.
They began with the implementation of the so-called “Sterile Insect Technique.” Since female medflies only mate once, local governments flooded the Bay Area with some 1.3 billion sterile males. 2,000 workers also went door-to-door stripping trees of fruit and 62,000 backyards were sprayed an average of 6 times each. It even became a crime not to strip your fruit trees, punishable by a $500 fine and up to 6 months in jail. The National Guard was called in to help oversee the process. By June 1981, it seemed that the medfly battle had been won.
But suddenly, the medfly was back with abandon. ...
