No response to Asian gypsy moth attractant

By ANNE BESTON, environment reporter

A Hamilton biosecurity zone saturated with a moth sex attractant has not failed to flush out any more of the pests.

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry staff and private contractors worked over the weekend to set up a grid of 700 pheromone-baited traps within a 7km radius of the Frankton trap that caught a live male Asian gypsy moth more than a week ago.

Maf has also set up 60 traps on the city fringes, 30km from the target area, as a last line of defence.

Asian gypsy moth response manager Mark Ross said ground survey teams had also trawled an area 1 1/2km from the trap over the past few days, looking for any gypsy moth life stages.

"They are targeting risk areas, places where containers or cars and machinery may have come in, and looking for egg masses," he said. "But it's still a mystery how it arrived."

The single moth was caught in an "early-warning" trap grid set up by Maf in 1993. It extends from Whangarei to Bluff, but this is the first time a moth has been caught.

Asian gypsy moth is one of Maf's top-10 unwanted organisms, a threat to exotic and native forests as well as horticulture. The insect has stripped trees of foliage over millions of hectares of forests in North America since its accidental introduction in the 1800s.

The moth feeds on more than 600 plant and tree species worldwide.

Its long-distance flying ability - 20kms for females, 100kms for males - gives it a good chance of spreading if not stopped early.

It is a voracious feeder and a relative of the painted apple moth, target of Maf's $90 million aerial campaign in West Auckland.

No further sign has been found of another moth pest, the fall webworm, discovered last month in Auckland's Mt Wellington.

Its hairy caterpillar was found on a liquidamber tree. The moth is known to feed on more than 500 plant species including cherry, sycamore, white birch and apple. The North America native has spread over Europe and Asia.