Registered Pesticides Cannot Stop Fire Ants

People shouldn't forget that there's never been a successful biological control of a social insect

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Subject:   Your "Registered" POISONS Do Not Control Killer Fire Ants----
Date:        Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:23:26 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read an CNN.com article entitled: Researchers import flies to battle killer fire ants - August 11, 2000 - From Mary Pflum CNN Reporter.  

(CNN) -- Researchers at the University of Texas are breeding flies to control the population of imported fire ants that has rapidly spread from California to Florida, leaving substantial damage along  the way.  

Last year, southern U.S. states spent millions of dollars on fire ant-related damage. The venomous ants have killed livestock and pets, diminished crops and caused serious electrical fires by  invading circuit boxes. A more extreme case occurred last spring, when a woman in a Florida nursing home died after fire ants attacked her in bed.    

Two kinds of fire ants inhabit the United States: those that are native and kept in check by North  American predators and those that were inadvertently imported from Brazil or possibly northern Argentina in the 1920s.  

Now researchers are attempting to control the ants by importing one of their native predators:  phorid flies.  

Larry Gilbert, an ecologist at the University of Texas, says the flies are the key to controlling  the population of imported ants. Thanks to funding from the state of Texas, Gilbert has established an imported phorid fly breeding farm in Austin. "We can't find many negatives about the fly except that it might not work," Gilbert said.  

 The flies actually invade the bodies of fire ants and lay their eggs there. As the larval stages of the fly develop inside the body, they pupate in the fire ant's head. The head of the ant then falls off.  

Researchers believe it takes about 3,000 flies to make a serious assault on a fire ant colony. So  far, Gilbert and his team have released 100,000 flies in Texas. Additional phorids are being released throughout Florida and other southeastern states.  

While the flies have yet to make a substantial dent in the imported fire ant population, researchers are cautiously optimistic.  

Naysayers worry that releasing non-native insects to control non-native ants could create further ecological problems, but Gilbert says the flies are host-specific. They only interact with and kill the imported fire ants.  

What's more, Gilbert says, the flies are more environmentally sound than chemical pesticides.  

"People shouldn't forget that there's never been a successful biological control of a social insect," Gilbert said. "You can't expect a solution to come overnight."  

Well Mr. Helliker, are you STILL demanding that only your "registered" POISONS be used to "professionally control" fire ants in California?  I have many safe and far more effective unregistered alternatives.  

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