from Carnarvon, Western Australia. In the 1980s, the Western Australia Department of Agriculture conducted a feasibility study into using the Sterile Insect Technique to eradicate the medfly population. Phase 1 of this study utilized 70 traps to establish the seasonal abundance of wild fly prior to releases. In Phase 2 of the study, the Department of Agriculture released 7.5 million sterile flies per week; however, this was insufficient in limiting the wild fly population. During phases 3 and 4, the number of released sterile flies increased to 12 million a week and was combined with chemical controls. After wild flies were no longer detected, phase 5 was initiated, withdrawing chemical controls from further distribution. Eradication was declared when neither wild flies nor larvae were found during the period of October 1984 to January 1985. This period corresponded to 3 fly generations; a threshold of eradication utilized by Hendrichs et al. (1982) in the eradication of the medfly in Mexico. Outbreaks in California Much research has been dedicated to means of controlling the medfly. In particular, use of the sterile insect technique has allowed the species to be eradicated from several areas. In 1981, California Governor Jerry Brown, who had established a reputation as a strong environmentalist, was confronted with a serious medfly infestation in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was advised by the state's agricultural industry and the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection service (APHIS) to authorize airborne spraying of the region. Initially, in accordance with his environmental protection stance, he chose to authorize ground-level spraying only. Unfortunately, the infestation spread as the medfly reproductive cycle outpaced the spraying. After more than a month, millions of dollars of crops had been destroyed and billions of dollars more were threatened. Governor Brown then authorized a massive response to the infestation. Fleets of helicopters sprayed malathion at night, and the California National Guard set up highway checkpoints and collected many tons of local fruit. In the final stage of the campaign, entomologists released millions of sterile male medflies in an attempt to disrupt the insects' reproductive cycle. Ultimately, the infestation was eradicated, but both the governor's delay and the scale of the action has remained controversial ever since. Some people claimed that malathion was toxic to humans, animals, as well as insects. In response to such concerns, Brown's chief of staff, B. T. Collins, staged a news