Public support vital for Tau fly threat

"MPI is working to find out if there are more Tau flies out there," says MPI's manager surveillance and incursion investigation, Brendan Gould.

Within 48 hours of the detection our teams set out 95 additional traps in the A Zone, the 200m area directly around where the fly was found in Manurewa.

The find of this single fly demonstrates how well MPI's lure-based surveillance trapping network is working. The network involves some 7600 traps set nationwide which are checked regularly.

Controls are in place to restrict the movement of some fruit and vegetables outside the defined circular area extending 1.5km from where the fly was found.

"These flies like to feed on pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, capsicum, zucchini, beans, mangoes, eggplant, papaya and passionfruit," says Gould.

"A full list of affected fruit and vegetables is available on MPI's website. We're asking people in the area to not move these off their property except to put them in the disposal bins provided.

"We appreciate that restrictions can be inconvenient but public support is vital to success and we've always had terrific community buy-in."

To find out whether your property falls within the control area, visit the MPI website www.mpi.govt.nz/tau-fly and enter your street address into their online search function.

If you think you might have seen a Tau fly in your area, please call the MPI helpline on 0800 80 99 66.