Painted apple moth find may be new import say officials

Biosecurity officials say a new find of a painted apple moth in Auckland may not necessarily be a sign that years of work and millions of dollars spent on eradicating the species have missed some of the invasive pests.

The latest find, a live male in a trap at an Otahuhu container facility on Thursday, is likely to be newly arrived, Biosecurity New Zealand eradication programmes manager Ian Gear said yesterday.

"This is a single moth," he said. "If there was a population, we'd expect to have trapped more."

The moth was in good condition and probably hatched only a day or so before being caught.

Other possibilities include its being part of a population in South Auckland which had not previously been recognised, or part of the West Auckland population which it was hoped had been eradicated.

The identification of the Australian moth was confirmed late on Monday and Mr Gear said information was still being gathered that would shed more light on it.

"The trap was right on the edge of the grid set up as part of the existing response, and the moth was ... in pretty good nick, which indicates it had not flown far," he said.

"The area is right in the middle of a heavy industrial zone with lots of import activity, plenty of cargo containers and very little vegetation."

West Aucklanders have undergone two years of aerial spraying against painted apple moth, with Btk spray, a live bacterium naturally occurring in soil, water and air. A few people have claimed that other components of the spray have the potential to cause health problems, and dozens of people left the spray zone each time the planes took to the air, and reported a variety of health effects including respiratory problems, rashes and headaches.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was last year given a funding boost of $13.5 million to eradicate the painted apple moth, and until last week the most recent capture was in Mt Eden in January last year, about 12km from the site of the latest find.

"Every indication we have had to date tells us that the current eradication programme has been successful," Mr Gear said. If it was shown that no more moths had been found from the "West Auckland grid" then that programme was likely to finish on January 16 next year.

But the trapping grid for the latest find will need to stay for two years.

"All this latest find proves is that the surveillance programme is working," Mr Gear said.

The new 10km-radius trapping grid includes 732 traps and will cover parts of Manurewa and Howick.

- NZPA