Hon Andrew Hoggard
Minister for Biosecurity

Biosecurity New Zealand today lifted controls on movement of fruit and vegetables in the North Shore suburb of Birkdale following no further finds of fruit flies since a single male Oriental fruit fly was discovered in a surveillance trap in the suburb in February.

“This is great news for New Zealand as a whole, and in particular the horticulture industry, which would have been severely impacted by the establishment of a fruit fly population here.”

Mr Hoggard thanked the local community and sector groups for their support during the biosecurity response.

“The residents of these areas have shown terrific community spirit. These communities really stepped up, along with the strong backing of the horticultural sector.

“Biosecurity New Zealand also put in an immense effort, with two separate fruit fly responses in Auckland this year, I commend them for their hard work over the last three months,

“Pests and diseases don't take a break and that's why our biosecurity system doesn’t sleep.

“We have successfully stopped this fly from establishing a population in New Zealand many times before and we should pat ourselves on the back that we’ve been successful, once more and I sincerely hope Murphy’s law doesn’t kick in here.”

Biosecurity New Zealand’s national fruit fly surveillance programme remains in place, which includes a network of fruit fly traps within the area that was under restrictions.

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