Tasmania’s quarantine officials are on alert this week after a Queensland fruit fly detection was made in the Australian state’s capital city Hobart on Wednesday.
Quarantine Tasmania has out in place an extensive trapping programme around the site of the detection, reported The Mercury.
While the outbreak has apparently been contained, the detection has put Tasmania’s fruit fly-free status at risk, potentially causing problems for the state’s exports to various markets in Asia.
“It’s of great concern because it does highlight the risk,” Lucy Gregg of peak industry body Fruit Growers Tasmania told the Mercury.
“We will closely monitor the intensive trapping program being undertaken while working closely with Quarantine Tasmania and the state government to ensure that everything is done to ensure that we can isolate the origin of the fruit fly.”
Tasmania is the only Australian state to be recognised to totally fruit fly-free, a status that has been of great advantage to the state’s horticultural exporters.
