DSIR on wasp warpath

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 318, 19 December 1989, Page 16

DSIR on wasp warpath

Wasp victims, now is your chance to strike back! The DSIR and the Lottery Board have teamed up to declare war on wasps. They want people to collect wasps for them - dead wasps, that is. DSIR is worried by the impact that wasps are having on people's enjoyment of the outdoors and the fact that native birds and insects are also losing out to wasps and Lottery Board science grant is assisting a research effort. People are being asked to collect as many wasps as possible

(but even one wasp is valuable) from anywhere in New Zealand (your backyard or remote wilderness). Swatting or fly -spray ing is the best way of collecting. They should then be placed in a crushproof container such as an empty film canister or a match box and sent to Wasps, DSIR, Private Bag, Nelson. Please include a note giving location (distance and direction to nearest town), date, and h a b i t a t (town/rural/scrub/forest) where the wasps were collected. If people include their name and address, they will receive information back. Mrs Jocelyn Tilley, of DSIR Ecology Division, is running the project. She says "The object is not to mobilise a people's army to control wasps by swatting. Rather we

will use the samples to track the spread of two new species, the common wasp and the Asian paper wasp." "The samples also give us valuable clues on the timing of the wasp population cycles and their effect on one anothcr. We can better target the areas most in need of control and determine which control methods are most appropriate in the different parts of New Zealand."

'We are graleful for the public's help, but we ask that people should not contact their local DSIR, or MAF office to have nests destroyed - we would love to be able to help, but we are not a pest destruction firm!" said Mrs Tilley. And she has a word of warning: "Please do not collect for us if you are allergic to stings, and no one should go near a wasp nest - that could be dangerous."