Alien invasion

I remember when conservative alarmists and red baiters used to say that Asia would overrun us with their sheer numbers of people. Perhaps they missed the species - and it's not their people, but their flora and fauna. Asian longhorned beetle has earned an (unsuccessful - get a clue people) eradication program. Japanese beetle as well. In many areas, trees are now simply framework for kudzu. And now cogon grass.

There's another interesting story in the introduced species news. It's a relatively old story that addresses the question of whether we cut off our noses to promote commerce. My answer to that is, of course, of course. It's all about the trade dollar. Subsidies. Free trade agreements. Multinational corporations. Cheap labor. A reference just popped into my head: throw the money changers out of the temple. Hmmm.

Well, anyway. This other story is one I learned about in agricultural graduate studies at UC Davis in '91. Professor Jim Carey was at that time researching a model of Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) spread. You see, California's citrus exporting is BIG BUSINESS. Huge. All of the highest grade (quality-wise) citrus - and other agricultural products as well - are taken off the top of every harvest for export. (The next highest grade goes to restaurants, and the lesser grades go into grocery stores where the American consumer gets the pick of the leftovers - never mind your tax dollar agricultural subsidies.)

To avoid the medfly pest being introduced into Japan, the Japanese government would only accept California's export citrus if the state certified that it had no "established population" of medfly. Tricky little bit of business here, but, for citrus growers, there were two ways of looking at the pest problem, as far as population management was concerned. Without getting into details, one method of management, concentrating on airports and imported material from countries where the medfly was established, would be effective if indeed the medfly never established populations in the state, but merely kept being reintroduced at ports of entry. The other method would instead use those state and grower resources to combat an already established population.

Dr. Carey had taken all of the state's own records of medfly incidence to show a population pattern that clearly proved medfly was indeed established in the state. His logical argument was that the state and citrus growers needed to switch to method two for management of the populations or risk eventual heavy losses due to established, growing medfly populations, and their spread then to other states. But, what the citrus associations saw was immediate loss of big dollars from Japan when that country refused to take the export product. Too shortsighted or dollar blind to see that if they didn't have an effective program to deal with the populations, they'd lose that avenue eventually, and probably permanently.

The entomology department head began receiving demands from the citrus lobby to dump Dr. Carey. And Dr. Carey began receiving death threats.

I see he's still there. I wonder about the medfly eradication program - whether they're still playing the game - and I assume they are.

And isn't this rich....

Sherman Oaks, Calif., October 1, 2002..."We are profoundly alarmed at the apparent dismissive arrogance of the Spanish authorities. How can we trust these same officials to implement needed improvements in the import regime for their citrus entering the U.S. and remedy the Medfly infestation that currently plagues Spain?" asked Mike Wootton, Vice President of Sunkist Growers, the 6,000-member California and Arizona citrus marketing cooperative.

...The Spanish are apparently still in denial that their fruit has a big problem, namely multiple findings of live medfly larvae last fall in Spanish clementines at locations around the US and from various Spanish shippers," said Wootton. "Incredibly, Minister Juarez refers to the pest finds in Spanish fruit as 'alleged' and 'uncertain' and refers to their discovery by 'non-experts'. Those 'non-experts' included trained inspectors of APHIS and of multiple state departments of agriculture, including the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

"Minister Juarez dismisses the concerns of Sunkist Growers and others as 'protectionism' and 'discrimination', noting a 17-year history of Spanish fruit entering the USA 'without any problem until now.' That 17-year history of Spanish fruit entering the US marketplace -- without competitive objection from Sunkist or other US producers -- could also be evidence that the current concerns are based, not on 'protectionism and discrimination', but on documented evidence their fruit is infested with a extremely destructive exotic pest -- the Mediterranean fruit fly," Wootton suggests.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) barred shipment of imported Spanish clementines last December after Mediterranean fruit fly larvae were found in the imported Spanish fruit in four states, including California. Now USDA is proposing new regulations that would allow Spanish clementines back into the country -- rules that American producers say are fatally flawed and dangerous to the economic health of American producers. (emphasis mine)

Now, here's the USDA's program for medfly (and Mexican fruitfly) management: control the pest in foreign countries.

Before those countries caught on to the dangers of toxic chemicals, that was the program's arsenal. Now, we use "environmentally friendly" chemicals and sterile fly releases.

Okay. That's even more than I wanted to know. I have no desire to follow this any further. I bet there aren't too many people who followed it this far.

If you'd like to see the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' list of introduced pests, here's a link to USACE's Invasive Flora & Fauna News. You can check into what's gotten across the border.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.