Council to let parasites fight wasps?
The Waimairi District Council may help pay for the release into its district of an insect that preys on the nests of the German and common wasps.
Two members of the D.S.I.R.’s Entomology Division, Dr Barry Donovan and Mr Peter Read, explained the scheme’s benefits at yesterday’s community affairs committee meeting. The insect would never become a pest itself because it attacked only wasps, Dr Donovan said. Tests at Lincoln College had showed encouraging wasp-nest attack rates by the parasite, a council report said. “The parasite lays eggs into cells within wasp nests and the developing parasites destroy young
wasps. In return for a contribution of $l5OO each year for two years by each local authority, the D.S.I.R. undertakes to liberate the wasp parasite within those local authority areas,” the report said. “If the biological control programme is successful, both the national and local economy benefits,” it said. Dr Donovan said the numbers of the common wasp began to rise in Christchurch two years ago and had become rapidly more prevalent. The parasite would, it was hoped, control wasp numbers to a level where the benefits of wasps, such as their fly and garden insect control, would still continue, Mr Read said.
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Press, 6 February 1986, Page 6
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208Council to let parasites fight wasps? Press, 6 February 1986, Page 6
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