SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 5 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands, through the Biodiversity Service, has launched a pilot project that will serve to determine the effectiveness of trained dogs for detecting the invasive subterranean termite , a species detected for the first time in 2010 on the island of Tenerife and whose eradication has been underway since 2019.
The head of the Autonomous Department, José Antonio Valbuena, stated in a note that “if the suitability of this project is confirmed, the use of dogs will serve to provide information that will improve the effectiveness of the eradication of the termite plague in the Canary Islands, considerably reduce the time spent on detection, minimize spending and save means and collect data on the location and hot spots of this invasive species”.
Valbuena indicated that since 2019 an action plan has been launched, in collaboration with the Cabildo de Tenerife and, since then, actions have begun to be carried out, both administrative and on the ground.
For his part, the Deputy Minister for the Fight against Climate Change and Ecological Transition, Miguel Ángel Pérez, explained that “this problem has been dragging on in Tenerife since 2010 and it is of utmost importance to put an end to the termite to prevent it from expanding within Tenerife. and to the rest of the islands”.
The initiative has a budget of 14,915.80 euros for an action to be carried out over a period of twelve months, which will be divided into three phases.
The first phase lasts from 45 to 60 days and in it the dogs are prepared to carry out a passive marking on the odor focus, discriminating any other external stimulus and working on association and discrimination, so that the canids achieve a high level precision in differentiating termites from other pests and environmental factors that are commonly found in the same location, such as ants, cockroaches, worms or mold, among others.
All this is reinforced with a high olfactory frequency that helps maximize positive results.
The second phase involves the start of field work, with searches in areas where the existence of termites is already known to reinforce positive markings to move on, in the third phase, to field work in non-localized areas.
In these two phases, data will be collected to help determine the effectiveness of canine detection as an aid in the eradication of the ‘reticulitermes flavipes’ termite.
THE INVASIVE TERMITE IN THE CANARY ISLANDS
The ‘Reticulitermes flavipes’, better known as the invasive subterranean termite, is a species that is already cataloged as an invasive alien species in the Spanish Catalog of Invasive Alien Species.
Likewise, worldwide, it is considered a species with high invasive potential that can cause serious economic and environmental damage.
This species is native to America and was detected and identified in Tenerife, around the year 2010, due to the invasion in a group of houses in the municipality of Tacoronte and throughout the decade it has been spreading until reaching the large area that covers this area. plague.
In the Canary Islands, this species is behaving in a more threatening way and forming much more numerous and extensive colonies than in other places and it has been seen that they are also capable of feeding on native vegetation, summarizes the Executive.
