Medfly Found in Santa Clara County; Traps Set

A Mediterranean fruit fly has been found in Santa Clara County, the battleground of the state’s 1980-82 Medfly war, the state Food and Agriculture Department said Friday.

The fly, an adult male, was found Thursday in one of the state’s insect traps hung on a pear tree in Mountain View, said John Connell, the department’s supervisor for pesticide projects in Northern California.

He said department employees have begun placing 1,700 additional insect traps in an 81-square-mile area around the find to see if a breeding population of flies is present. They also will examine fruit trees for Medfly larvae.

“At the moment there is no reason to call it an infestation,” Connell said, adding that no aerial or ground spraying programs are imminent.

The Medfly is a major destroyer of fruit, vegetable and nut crops. At its peak, the 1980-82 infestation spread over about 3,900 square miles in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and San Benito counties.

The state already is fighting a Medfly infestation in the region west of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where about 40 of the flies have been found since late July. There has been one aerial application of malathion in a 16-square-mile region around the core of that infestation, Connell said.

On Aug. 21, the state began a program of releasing sterile flies in the region to cut down on Medfly reproduction. It also is sampling backyard fruit in the area in a search for eggs of the insect.