Invasive Insect Takes Over Southern California Areas
An invasive fruit fly species has brought an agriculture quarantine to parts of Orange County, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).
Officials issued the alert after eight oriental fruit flies were detected around the cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove. Residents under quarantine are asked not to move homegrown fruits and vegetables from their properties to help prevent the spread of the invasive species, the CDFA said in a release Wednesday. The flies are known to target over 230 fruit, vegetable and plant commodities.
The quarantine zone stretches about 87 square miles in Southern California and includes the areas surrounding Fountain Valley, Garden Grove and Santa Anna. A map of the quarantine zone can be found on the CDFA's website.
The oriental fruit fly is native to the South Asia mainland and neighboring islands, such as Sri Lanka and Taiwan. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the invasive species was first detected in the United States in the mid-1940s, in Hawaii. Over the past decade, the fly has been increasingly detected in California because of increased international air travel.
The CDFA said in its release that the "most likely pathway" for the oriental fruit fly to reach California "is by 'hitchhiking' in fruits and vegetables brought back illegally by travelers as they return from infested regions of the world or in packages of home grown produce from other countries sent to California."
