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Little Fire Ants on Maui

Find the aerial treatment schedule here: Nahiku LFA Aerial Treatment

Status of the 16 known little fire ant infestations in Maui County as of October 2020. Red dots represent the seven sites currently being treated, blue represents nine sites that have been treated and are being monitored to ensure eradication.

Island-wide surveys

The Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture regularly finds and destroys little fire ants during inspections at the airport and harbor, however, they cannot inspect 100% of material moved interisland there is an ever-present possibility that little fire ants will slip through. For this reason, any suspected populations should be reported.

Regular surveys will help prevent little fire ants from becoming widespread on Maui.

Little Fire Ants are not widely established on Maui and any suspect ants should be collected and reported to the Maui Invasive Species Committee. 

Treatment Methods

Eradicating little fire ants requires a thorough understanding of where they are. Each point represents a sample of ants collected. Red indicates little fire ants. Watch how the population changes after treatment. MISC image

Keep in mind that there is a difference between pest control (calling an exterminator) and pest eradication. Pest control reduces the pests in an area, like your home, but the threat of re-introduction from outside of the treated area is ever-present. Pest eradication eliminates every last individual in the population. If eradication is successful, there will be no pests left to re-establish. This process is meticulous and painstaking, requiring many years of surveying, treating, and repeating to achieve. Through extensive testing and field experience, the Hawaiʻi Ant Lab (HAL) and Maui Invasive Species Committee have developed specialized techniques to eradicate little fire ant infestations.  A very simplified explanation of an eradication effort as follows:

  1. Delimitation: extensive surveys well beyond the suspected infestation to be confident that the entire population has been mapped
  2. Initial treatment: A treatment zone is established 20 meters around any LFA detection. This area is then treated every 6-8 weeks for a year
  3. Post-treatment survey: At the end of one year of treatments, the treatment zone is surveyed again to test efficacy and measure progress.
  4. Spot treatments: If any LFA are discovered, and new treatment zone is established, and the process above is repeated on a three-month schedule until zero ants are found.
  5. Post-treatment monitoring: No treatment or survey is perfect, thus surveys will continue for the next five years to ensure that the ants have been completely eliminated. If ants are discovered at any time, spot treatments will resume and the monitoring process will start anew.

Sites currently undergoing treatment:
(listed by most recent infestation)

Haʻikū – Kaupakalua Road:

Twin Falls:

Waihe’e Valley:

Kaʻelekū:

Nāhiku:

Huelo:

Monitoring Status

 

Lahainaluna High School:

Happy Valley (Wailuku):

South Maui Nursery:

Kapalua:

Haʻikū – Lilikoʻi Road:

  • Discovered: January 2015
  • Source: Huelo infestation
  • Current Status: Monitoring. The last ants were found in August of 2017

Waiheʻe Farm:

  • Discovered: October 2009
  • Source: Unknown
  • Current Status: Monitoring. The last ants were found in June of 2017

South Maui Resort:

  • Discovered: May 2014
  • Source: Unknown
  • Current Status: Monitoring. The last ants were found in August of 2015

LFA Infested Truck:

  • Discovered: July 2015
  • Source: Nahiku infestation
  • Current Status: The last ants were found in July of 2015

South Maui Business:

  • Discovered: July 2014
  • Source: Hapuʻu ferns from the Big Island
  • Current Status: Monitoring. The last ants were found in July of 2014

Significant Interceptions

  • March 2016: A local landscaper was helping a friend haul building material to Hana. The landscaper knew that the shingles he was hauling had been stored outside in a LFA infested area of Hawaiʻi Island and was concerned that they may harbor little fire ants. He brought the shingles to the Maui Invasive Species Committee and they were indeed swarming with LFA. The shingles were treated and turned over to the owner. The landscapers’ actions prevented little fire ants from infesting the remote East Maui community.
  • December 2013/ January 2014: A Maui resident purchased hāpuʻu ferns at a garden shop. She tested the fern only to find LFA. Thanks to her actions and the traceback efforts of the Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture, inspectors discovered LFA moving in hāpuʻu shipped from Hawaiʻi Island to Oʻahu, Lānaʻi, and other places on Maui. The infested hāpuʻu material still at garden shops on Maui was destroyed; 27 hāpuʻu, representing the bulk of the material sold was turned in and destroyed, none of it was infested.

Last updated September 2020