Bobby Corrigan Named the 2024 Crown Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

At the 2024 Crown Leadership Awards ceremony in Denver, Colo., PCT and Syngenta presented this year's Lifetime Achievement Award to Bobby Corrigan, Ph.D., RMC Pest Management Consulting. He is well-known as a world leading expert in rodent control, and for his research in the behavior of urban rodents that continues to transform rodent pest management in the pest control industry.

Oriental fruit fly

Bactrocera dorsalis

On 3 January 2025, a single male Oriental fruit fly was found in a surveillance trap in the Auckland suburb of Papatoetoe. Biosecurity New Zealand has mounted an operation to determine whether there are more fruit flies and get rid of any population to protect the horticulture industry and home gardens.

They have ramped up trapping and testing, with daily checks in a 200 metre radius from the original find and inspection of traps every 3 days in a second zone out to 1,500 metre radius.

Why this is a problem for New Zealand

The Oriental fruit fly can affect over 300 hosts including apple, kiwifruit, citrus, and tomatoes. A population of Oriental fruit fly would cause control costs, production losses, and some countries might stop accepting our exported produce.

What's the situation?

The single male Oriental fruit fly was found in a surveillance trap in a suburban back yard. Checks to date of 187 other traps in the Papatoetoe/Māngere area did not find any exotic fruit flies in them.

Papatoetoe/Mangere under a Controlled Area Notice (CAN)

An area of Papatoetoe is under a Controlled Area Notice. This is effective from 4 January. This restricts the movement of certain fruits and vegetables out of the Controlled Area to help prevent the spread of any fruit flies if there are more out there.

This area is divided into 2 zones, A and B, which have different restrictions.

Zone A is a 200 metre radius area from the original find. Zone B is a 1,500 metre radius area from original find.

The Oriental fruit fly is widespread in Africa and Asia. In Oceania, it is present in Christmas Island, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Hawaii and Tahiti. However, it is absent from Australia.

It can affect over 300 hosts including apple, kiwifruit, citrus, and tomatoes. Adult flies lay eggs into fruit. The young stages (maggots) feed inside the fruit, causing it to rot and become unmarketable.

Adult flies:

• are a little larger than a housefly (6mm to 8mm long)
• have a dark "T" shaped marking on the abdomen (the part behind the waist)
• usually have a bright yellow and orange abdomen (but can vary)
• have clear wings
• The thorax (behind the head) is dark or near black with 2 near parallel yellow thin strips running down each side of the thorax
• The female fly has a pointed "sting" to lay eggs inside fruit (but she can't sting or bite people).

Larvae look like white long-grain rice.

Register now for PestWorld East 2025 – 15-16 April 2025

All international pest professionals are invited to PestWorld East 2025. This event is to be held between 15-16 April 2025 at the W Dubai - The Palm, West Crescent, Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Held bi-annually, and organised by the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) in the USA, PestWorld East is designed to unite pest professionals from around the world, but particularly from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and India.

Dominique Stumpf, CEO of NPMA said: "We are delighted to once again be organising PestWorld East 2025 and to be working in partnership with the leading supplier of pest management solutions, Ecovar.

“This event is designed to provide pest management professionals with credible, unbiased technical and business information. The 2025 conference will focus on emerging technologies, sustainable practices and regional-specific solutions."

Over the two days there will be presentations from a section of industry leaders covering, amongst other things, vector borne diseases, the latest developments in pest control technology and solutions to regional pest management issues.

At such events there is always time to network with global industry leaders and attend the bustling exhibition which will feature the latest advancements in pest management technology.

Delegates are encouraged to take advantage of the early bird registration rates which are available until Friday, 14 February.

PestWorld East 2024 details, covering registration, the programme, exhibition, hotel accommodation and travel arrangements can be found on the PestWorld East 2025 website at www.npmapestworld.org/pestworldeast

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