The Country 15/01/26: Mike Inglis talks to Hamish McKay

Biosecurity New Zealand commissioner north has the latest on the Queensland fruit fly and yellow-legged hornet.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we've got the situation of course as you'll be
away with the Queensland fruit fly and also the fendangled
yellout legged horne it. So we're going to go out
to the expert on this MPI by our security z
Northern Regional Commissioner Mike Ingles. What is the situation with
these two? What's the lightest?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, just with the fruit fly. In the seventh of January,
we had a single male Queensland fruit fly in one
of our traps. We've got eight thousand traps throughout the
country's surveillance trap so we found one in the Mount
Roscoll region and again we immediately went into a response
mode with that. It was a Queensland fruit fly, single mail.
This is the first Queensland one we've had since twenty nineteen,

(00:41):
so initially kicked in that forty hours sufficient our staff
and our specialist staff are contractors. Our local community has
been great so we've not found on another one since
then across the last week, but we continue to manage
it carefully. We've got two zones in place and a
can tolled area notice to make sure we're managing and

(01:02):
controlling the fruit going out in and out of the
area and we're also collecting the fruit every day. So
the community have been absolutely fantastic. We're truly blessed in
this country where people understand biosecurity and work through the
local boards and our industry partners. So Belt Embraces absolutely
quickly responded a lot of stuff and a lot of

(01:23):
resource out about going to markets and stuff. So in
terms of the fruit fly, we're in a good space
with that and we'll continue to manage it and keep
on top of it.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, what about the yellow legged horne.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, we've been dealing with the vespa velletina as it's
known the yellow legged hornet from from Asia, though it
is endemic in parts of Europe in the UK, and
that's been from the third of November. Again, the teams
have done an excellent job here, including engaging with aparists,
their b industry colleagues and are wider horticulture industry colleagues.
The impact of this pest. We don't look a bit

(01:57):
like the fruit fly. We do not want this hornet
in our country. Up to date we found forty queens.
We continue to put out about nine hundred and seventy
traps and my team have also done about eight and
a half thousand ground surveys that's going out checking ground surveys,
checking for nests. And again the public response in the
Glenfield area on the North Shore has been incredible. We

(02:19):
had nearly nine and a half thousand note rotations from
people throughout the country. We've got this contained within a
one to two klimeter area and we're continuing to manage that.
The real benefit of this is we've managed to get
what nearly six hundred apieris on site in terms of
their hive surveillance, members of the public making their own
traps doing an awesome job in that space. So we're

(02:42):
running both operations at once, but with the same focus
and the same energy and the resources and pace. And
as always with these we've got a great track record,
as you know in New Zealand of eradicating these pests
and that can only be done with the collaboration of
my team, of the local communities, the local bow and
members of the public alongside our industry partners. So both

(03:04):
I would say to they're very confident in both that
we're on top of it and managing it. But again
we're never complacent, will continue to manage it over the
coming weeks.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
You're listening to the country. We're talking to Mike Ingles,
MPI Bio Security and said Northern Regional Commissioner. That warms
the cockles of my heart. Might like to hear that
people get it. I understand because the threats exponential, huge
if we don't get it right.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, and it's absolutely fantastic our notification, even though in
terms of we always take technical advice and that the hornet.
We've got UK experts, we've got people from Europe, we've
got our own internal experts in New Zealand. But one
of the things that when we speak to our external
colleagues is we didn't really we already had a great
system where people phone the hotline on a one hundred

(03:50):
eighty ninety nine sixty six for a variety of reasons.
And even my team being out and about, we know
there's an imposition with the fruit fly in terms of
moving whole fruit in and out of the zone. But
to a person that we've met and we've been round
the properties, I'm up here today again going round and
engaging with public and across the piece, the response we
get is fantastic. It's just incredible.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
To be honest, Mike Angels, MPI Biosecurity as the Northern
Regional Commissioner, thank you very much for your time.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Thank you so much, amos. Enjoy your day.