The Yingge Citizens’ Allotments, which New Taipei City’s Agriculture Department recommends as a secret spot for flower viewing, is experiencing a red fire ant crisis. On Friday last week the Agriculture Department rushed people to the scene to spray insecticide to exterminate the fire ants and take urgent preventive measures for the district. The department urges members of the public to stay away from the fire ants, so as to avoid getting stung and bitten by them.
The Yingge Citizens’ Allotments cover about 2.8 hectares of farmland. Since the land is currently in the fallow period, the fields are lacking in moisture, and this has led to a large-scale invasion of red fire ants. In October, students from seven elementary schools in Yingge went into the fields and scattered a large quantity of garden cosmos, sulfur cosmos and zinnia flower seeds, and one of the students taking part accidentally got stung by fire ants.
Local farmers say they applied insecticide a month ago to control the ants, but it will take between three months and half a year to get rid of them completely. Now that a big sea of flowers is blooming, the farm workers are all worried that people who go to see them may get stung, but they have no way of stopping people from going in, so all they can do is keep reminding visitors to be careful.
Photo: Courtesy of BAPHIQ
照片：農委會防檢局提供
Chang Li-chen, head of the Agriculture Department’s farm and husbandry management section, says that the main area of New Taipei City where red fire ants have appeared is the banks of the Dahan River, and preventive measures are being applied to a total area of 6,000 hectares in the municipality. Chang says that the area in which the ants have been detected on this occasion was previously not included in the prevention zone. She surmises that river water may have carried them into the area when typhoons passed through Taiwan earlier this year.
Local farmers, for their part, say that fallow and dry land is always a high-risk area for red fire ants to appear. They have tied red ribbons around the edge of the flower fields as a warning, and they say that people will be safer if they keep a distance of at least 30 centimeters when they approach fields to view the flowers.
(Liberty Times, translated by Julian Clegg)
新北市農業局推薦的賞花秘境「鶯歌市民農園」爆出紅火蟻危機，農業局上週五緊急派人噴藥滅「火」，同時將針對該區採取緊急防治措施，呼籲民眾勿靠近，以免遭紅火蟻叮咬。
「鶯歌市民農園」內約二．八公頃的農田因正值休耕期，農田缺水，導致紅火蟻大量入侵。十月時鶯歌七所小學學生，到農田內撒下大波斯菊、黃波斯菊及百日草花籽，當時就有一名小學生不慎被紅火蟻叮傷。
當地農民指出，一個月前已投藥控制，但要完整去除紅火蟻，須三個月到半年時間。現在大片花海綻放，員工們都很擔心前來賞花的民眾被叮傷，但又無法阻止民眾入內，只能不斷提醒遊客小心注意。
農業局農牧經營管理科長張麗珍表示，新北紅火蟻發生區域主要以大漢溪沿岸為主，全市防治面積約六千公頃。張麗珍說，這次發現的紅火蟻區域過去未列管，研判可能是今年颱風過境時，隨水流帶入。
當地農民則強調，休耕或缺水農地本就是紅火蟻出沒高風險區，已在花田周圍綁紅絲帶警示。民眾接近賞花最好距離三十公分以上，比較安全。
（自由時報記者陳韋宗）
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