Otago Regional Council environmental monitoring and operations manager Jeff Donaldson has recently been helping with eradication efforts in Auckland after the Queensland fruit fly outbreak there.
ORC chief executive Peter Bodeker said the council had provided Mr Donaldson as operations manager for the response for six days from March 4.
The ORC also had two other staff members who could be requested to help, Mr Bodeker said in a report tabled at yesterday's ORC meeting in Dunedin.
And he noted that Mr Donaldson's Auckland role reflected the skills of ORC staff.
Field work was continuing to focus on surveillance trapping, to capture any male fruit flies present and ultimately to confirm that eradication had been successful.
Four weeks into the operation, the expectation was that the flies would be eradicated as a localised operation.
And field teams continued to reapply insecticide bait and set traps throughout the controlled area, as well as informing residents about the controls, and inspecting gardens and rubbish bins.
The National Biosecurity Capability Network (NBCN) is a joint network between the Ministry for Primary Industries and AssureQuality, and the ORC is among the network's members.
AssureQuality, a government-owned company involved in biosecurity work, had used 19 organisations and 724 individuals to help in the fruit fly response, Mr Bodeker noted.
All network members had been outstanding and the real worth of the network had been ''tried and tested''.
Positive comments had been made about the network's efforts from both Ministry for Primary Industries director-general Martyn Dunne and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy, Mr Bodeker said.
