Death to Blow-flies

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 167, 5 October 1927, Page 1

Death to Blow-flies

I . ! | CARGO OF PARASITES ON J I UTS WAY TO NEW ZEA- j j LAND TO EXTERMINATE J 1 DESTRUCTIVE PEST j

DUE THIS MONTH During the coming summer the number of blow flies in New Zealand should be reduced. A curious cargo is on its way to the Dominion from England, and is due here this month. It consists of 6,000 chrysalises of a parasite which will be liberated in New Zealand in an effort to kill and exterminate the provoking and destructive blow-fly. The cargo which left England consisted of 15,000 chrysalises of the ordinary English blue-bottle fly, carefully packed in wooden boxes between laj 7 - ers of moss. These are being kept at the right temperature so that nothing will hatch until it arrives at its destination at the beginning of the New Zealand summer. When the boxes are unpacked there will emerge not the blue-bottle fly but a number of small parasitic flies which it is hoped will attack their natural enemy, the blow-fly, and exterminate |t. The chrysalises of the English bluebottle were food for the parasites oh the voyage. Only 6,000 of the chrysalises are for New Zealand. The remainder will go to New South Wales, Western Australia and the Falkland Jslands. Experts have discovered that the blow-fly causes an immense amount of damage, particularly among sheep. Even in New Zealand sheep die in large numbers from the grub of the blow-fly, which hatches in the wool of the animal and gradually eats into the flesh. The damage from the blow-fly among sheep in New South Wales was estimated at £2,000,000 in one year alone. The work of arranging and dispatching the chrysalises from England was done by Dr. G-. A. K. Marshall, entomological adviser to the Colonial Office. His department is now trying to discover a parasitic enemy to exterminate the earwig, which is causing an immense amount of damage to fruit.