🚀 go-pugleaf

in article <1990May21.202934.16658@vlsi-mentor.jpl.nasa.gov>, dave@vlsi-mentor.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) says:

[regarding malathion spraying]
> I cannot see the other solutions. That doesn't mean there aren't any...

Well, we could switch to DDT...

Seriously, though, I know of two other ways of dealing with med fly
infestations.  Brian Yoder already mentioned releasing sterile flies.
The problems with this are (1) breeding that many flies is very
expensive, and (2) the wild med flies fairly quickly evolve to ignore
the very homogeneous sterile population, so this program doesn't work
over long time or in large populations.

The other method is trapping.  This is currently being used on an
outbreak in Santa Clara County.  Pheromones attract the fly to a trap,
where they get stuck.  If the outbreak is small enough, there aren't
enough flies left over to make a viable population.  One advantage of
this is that you want to do it anyway to monitor the fly's population.
The disadvantage is that it works only on very small outbreaks.

What both these environmentally safe methods have in common is that
they work best while the problem is small.  It is of utmost importance
that infestations be dealt with as quickly as possible, barring
panicked reaction.
-- 
Mark Isaak    {decwrl,sun}!imagen!isaak  or  imagen!isaak@decwrl.dec.com
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." - Nietzsche