CONTROL OF TSETSE FLY

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30485, 6 July 1964, Page 18

CONTROL OF TSETSE FLY

Game Killing Opposed (N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright) SALISBURY, Southern Rhodesia. The Wild Life Society of Southern Rhodesia has warned the Government it will do all in its power to rouse public opinion if the policy of game destruction to control the tsetse fly is revived in Southern Rhodesia. Certain types of the bloodsucking tsetse fly are carriers of sleeping sickness.

The society will ’ send a delegation to urge the Minister of Agriculture (Lord Graham) not to start slaughtering game in the fly belts

In a memorandum to Lord Graham, the society said the loss to Southern Rhodesia by a slight increase of fly in the next four years—which might not even happen—would be far less harmful to the country than the adverse criticism if slaughter was resumed. “If there Is not early assurance that this project .is to be abandoned or, at the very least, deferred for four or five years to give time for the application of other methods of control, the society must fulfil its main purpose. “It will do all In its power to rouse public opinion to the fact that the Government is proposing to revive a policy which has previously been condemned by an independent commission.

“Control of tsetse fly by insecticides is 95 per cent effective at a cost of £35 a square mile. Fly could be, for practical purposes, eliminated over 1000 square miles for about £35,000,” it said.