Biosecurity Tasmania is urging people to check their fruit and vegetables for signs of fruit fly, with the pest’s high-risk season now under way.
The risk of fruit fly getting into the state is highest in spring and summer, when there is more fruit fly activity on the mainland and more people are travelling to Tasmania.
The pest can be brought in accidentally in fruit and vegetables. It can infest a wide range of fruits and fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes.
Tasmania is an internationally recognised fruit fly pest free area.
Biosecurity Tasmania said that status gave growers access to “lucrative overseas markets” and reduced the need for pesticides to control the “destructive horticultural pests”.
The two species of most concern are Queensland fruit fly, found in the eastern mainland states and the Northern Territory and Mediterranean fruit fly, which is established in parts of Western Australia.
Queensland fruit fly was detected in northern Tasmania in 2018, but those outbreaks were quickly eradicated.
People are being asked to look for live larvae or eggs inside produce, small puncture marks on the skin and soft, rotten-feeling flesh underneath.
Biosecurity Tasmania said people were more likely to see larvae or maggots than adult flies.
The larvae are 5-10 millimetres long and usually easy to spot in the flesh of fruit.
Vinegar flies, which are common in Tasmania and often hover over compost heaps and fruit bowls, are often mistaken for fruit flies. They do not go after healthy fruit.
Anyone who finds larvae is being asked not to throw the fruit away.
Instead, they should leave the larvae in the produce, seal both in a bag or container and store it in the fridge before contacting Biosecurity Tasmania.
The state uses import controls, border inspections and a permanent network of fruit fly traps.
Biosecurity Tasmania said it put on extra resources during the high-risk season, but keeping the pest out also relied on industry, travellers and the community “remaining vigilant”.
“If you are not sure, please report it anyway,” it said.
