STABLE FLY — SPALANGIA
WASP — RELEASE
15. Hon JIM CHOWN to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
Does the Department of Primary
Industries and Regional Development support the release of Spalangia
wasp in the Gingin area to mitigate the plague of stable flies that cause
enormous stress to all living creatures at this time of the year; and, if not,
why not?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the
question.
We certainly understand the horror
that is stable flies but we do not intend to support the release of the wasp.
The reason for this is that the trials that took place in 2015 and 2016 in a cattle
feedlot demonstrated zero efficacy for stable fly parasitism, and no scientific
literature supports this course of action.