AQIS Bulletin June / July 2007
Other articles include:
- Quarantine On the Line?
- New Border Defence Recruits Arrive
- New Troops For The Northwest Frontier
- Wine Exporters Take Note — Ethyl Carbamate’s On The Nose
- AQIS Cleans Up In Singapore
- Hot – And Cold – Under The Collar
- Engaging Indigenous Communities
Feature article
‘Big Bugs’ Help Quarantine Awareness
The latest phase of AQIS’s successful Quarantine Matters! Awareness campaign features some Hollywoodsized monsters: two ‘big bugs’ that are doing their outsized bit to help educate the travelling public that dangerous pests and diseases can lurk inside food, wood, plant and animal items brought in from overseas. The new phase of the campaign,
which has been running since 1998, builds on an already impressive track record in raising quarantine awareness — currently at around 90 per cent of the Australian population.
Fronting the campaign are animatronic models of an Asian longhorn beetle larva and a khapra beetle, designed with technical advice from AQIS’s Sydney-based entomologists to ensure the insects are as realistic as possible. The big bugs were chosen following research with recent and prospective travellers, and had the most marked response from Australian travellers and those from non-English speaking backgrounds.
The khapra beetle was selected because it’s the world’s most significant pest of grain, flour and other stored produce, while Asian longhorn beetle larvae burrow beneath the bark of trees, leaving them damaged and vulnerable to fungus growth.
The commercials highlight ‘if the bugs you carry in goods from overseas were this obvious you would declare them.’ The large bugs carried by the passengers in the commercial are then compared to the real insects on which the models are based.
These are shown in their actual size crawling inside nuts and a wooden bowl through a microscopic zoom effect. Why the zoom? The real Khapra beetle is only 0.3 cm in length and the Asian Long Horned Beetle Larvae is 5 cm. The big bugs will now play an important role to complement their starring parts in the TV and print advertisements. They are being taken to travel shows across the country as an additional way to capture people’s attention and to further raise quarantine awareness.
- AQIS Bulletin - June / July 2007
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