Approval has been granted to import and release two new organisms, a hoverfly and beetle, in a bid to reduce plague populations of invasive German and common wasps in New Zealand.
The Environmental Protection Authority's General Manager of Hazardous Substances and New Organisms, Dr Chris Hill, talked to Afternoons about the ecological arsenal being given approval and how it deals with problematic wasps.
He tells Jesse Mulligan the hoverfly and wasp nest’s beetle have their origins in Europe, as wasps do, and attack them at the source, their nests.
Metoecus paradoxus or wasp nest beetle Photo: supplied
“Their own larvae go in there and eat them basically and, hopefully, they will knock some of their numbers down.”
He says the trick to dealing with pest populations is to find a species that will attack the target, but nothing else.
“The Landcare Group will source the insects from the UK, and they’ve got greenhouses where they’ll try breed them up and they’ve got permission to release them into the environment.”
Hill says wasps are a big problem in New Zealand and tend to breed in their thousands in beech forests in summer.
“I’ve been told there’s so many that you can actually hear them humming in the forests. There’s nothing holding them back.”
“In the application, it was estimated they [wasps] cost around $133 million annually just in terms of damages and managing them.”
He says the insects being introduced shouldn’t be an issue for native wasps or bees. In surveys around Europe, they’ve only ever been found in wasp’s nest.
“It’s not a silver bullet that will make wasps disappear in New Zealand but the hope is it will significantly impact on the numbers that we find.”
