Moth adverts seen as softener

By ANNE BESTON environment reporter

East Aucklanders appear to be being softened up for aerial insecticide spraying as biosecurity authorities launch an advertising campaign over yet another moth pest.

Newspaper advertisements taken out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are warning of the threat posed by the fall webworm, discovered in Mt Wellington early this year.

Maf director of forest biosecurity Peter Thomson said the ads were an effort to alert the local community to the pest and also to the possibility of an aerial spray campaign.

"This is a significant pest and if we find it, we are going to have to take further action - and aerial spraying is one of the options on the cards," he said.

But anti-spray campaigner Hana Blackmore questioned how serious a threat the webworm was and whether aerial spraying would be effective.

"This is a minor pest in other countries such as the US and Canada, and with a pheromone to bait traps and the fact anyone can spot it, to consider aerial spraying is just not good enough," she said.

Maf has laid a grid of 700 traps baited with a synthetic sex-attractant to track the pest but none has been found since the March infestation.

With major pest eradication campaigns in West Auckland for painted apple moth and in Hamilton East for asian gypsy moth, the ministry is under siege by anti-spraying activists - but Mr Thomson said that would not change the action it would take.

"Maf doesn't want to be carrying out aerial spray operations and we only look at doing it when there are no viable alternatives," he said.

Crunch-time for a decision on fall webworm was likely to be about the middle of next month, when any moths that had bred over winter would begin to fly.

The news from Maf's other Auckland biosecurity front, West Auckland, continues to be good: no painted apple moths have been found since May.

Fact file

* The fall webworm is a member of the tiger moth family and a native of the US.

* It weaves a distinctive web over host trees and feeds on a wide variety of horticultural and ornamental plants.

* The pest has spread throughout Europe and Asia since the 1950s.