If you can get a population started, they'll eventually move to the places where you most want or need control. But that may not be the best place to try and get a population started. Richard admits he gets a little defensive when people say the insects failed to work. But we can now minimize establishment failure by using all of the things we've learned over the past 10 years. Herbicides are still the preferred tool for containing and preventing the spread of spurge infestations, for example, and sheep are an excellent mechanism for controlling spurge while diversifying cattle grazing operations.
Biological control is just one of the tools that are available and can be used.
Prosser, Richard and Kirby encouraged people with questions about biological control to seek out the information that can help contribute to establishing a successful biocontrol site. We want to make sure people have all of the information they need to make biological control work. Go to more feature stories arranged by category. You are the 1029th person to access this page.