Grey nomads have been identified as ‘prime suspects’ as the battle to halt the spread of a debilitating fruit fly outbreak grows more intense.
With Victoria’s Sunraysia region losing its pest-free status in 2014, South Australian quarantine officials are casting suspicious eyes at caravans and motorhomes as they seek to prevent the pest decimating the Riverland’s multimillion-dollar fruit and vegetable industry.
Biosecurity SA’s state compliance chief Mark Langham told the Mercury newspaper that their job was made a lot harder by the spike in grey nomads travelling in caravans loaded with produce from infested towns and cities interstate.
“And it takes three times longer for us to search a caravan as it does to check a car,” he said.
He said that, despite extensive signage, handouts, advertisements and roadside bins lining roads leading into the state’s fruit regions, many people stopped at random road blocks claimed they had not seen a single sign.
As the pest spreads across Victoria, the Yamba quarantine station on the Sturt Highway between Mildura and Renmark, has already confiscated nine lots of infested fruit and vegetable coming from the Sunraysia district this year
Station assistant supervisor Craig Solly told the Mercury that Victoria’s Sunraysia region was ‘getting more and more fruit fly’ and the threat to South Australia was serious.
“The troops are getting closer, and it becomes a bit more desperate as that gets closer and closer and closer,” he said. “We have to be more vigilant.”
About 16 staff work around the clock at the Yamba station. As well as the threat of Queensland fruit fly sweeping down the east coast, South Australia must also guard against Mediterranean fruit fly from the west.
Despite the state spending $5 million fighting fruit fly in 2015-16, there were still 81 fruit fly detections spread across its four static roadblocks, random checks and more than 3500 trap sites.
Last year, South Australia had to spend $1.5 million to eradicate a major Mediterranean fruit fly outbreak in Adelaide, in an effort that included releasing one to two million sterile male fruit flies a week.
· Have you ever had fruit confiscated at a quarantine checkpoint? Have you had your rig thoroughly checked over? Comment below
The only place we have been thoroughly checked has been going in to Western Australia at Kununurra. And we have crossed every border. Shh
as a true grey nomad last time we travelled in that direction we bought fruit and veges from road side markets we dont carry fruit and veg into the area better start looking at the ones who claim to be grey nomads and make it look bad for the real ones
Does anyone know why the insect is called a “FLY”? We keep our fruit in the fridge. If a fruit fly can live in that environment then it is good!
I imagine it is the larvae that are the issue, and they can probably survive much more difficult conditions than the adult insects.
It is a fly that stings fruit with eggs which become larvae inside the fruit, eventually they eat there way out and become flys again,if fruit is infested , often unnoticed the pip etc thrown away allows the cycle to continue if not disposed of properly ,
Wouldn’t you think it would be smarter to stop the sale of infected produce in the first place.or at the very least make the vendor advise people they will not be able to carry their produce across borders.
It seems to be blame the nomads year. We are accused of leaving rubbish in free camping areas and now transmitting fruit flys.
It’s called a fruit fly and it can fly, maybe it just flew into the area.