Rhinoceros Beetles
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
Rockefeller Grant For War on Rhinoceros Beetles
A ROCKEFELLER grant of 45,000 dollars to aid the fight against the rhinoceros beetle, scourge of South Pacific coconut plantations, was announced by the Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission (Dr.
Ralph Clairon Bedell) on August 8.
A Commission statement at Noumea pointed out that the drastic measures already taken by Admin istrations against the pest have “failed signally to bring widespread relief.”
The rhinoceros beetle is a major threat to the copra and allied in dustries in Western and Eastern
Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, the Wallis Islands and the United States Trust Territory islands.
After the Pacific War, some islands in the Palaus were stripped bare by the pest.
Two South Pacific entomologists are already at work on the problem —Dr. R. A. Cumber, in Western Samoa, and Mr. T. V. Venkatra man, in East Africa and South- East Asia.
Research will concentrate on the possibilities of control through the introduction to the Islands of parasites, predators and pathogenic micro-organisms.