“LITTLE FIRE ANT INFORMATION CONTAINED INACCURACY”

Dear Editor,    

I wish to express my concern about an article on the little fire ants that appeared on page one of the December 31, 2025 edition of Samoa News. The article provides useful information to the public and is mostly accurate except for the headline, which is not correct. Unfortunately, little fire ants are not new in American Samoa. The article is written as if the information came from the American Samoa Community College, but  ASCC did not provide this information to Samoa News, nor did ASCC receive any inquiry from Samoa News to verify the information contained in the article.

The little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata, was first detected on Tutuila Island in 2018 (as reported in the Samoa News of December 20, 2018). Since that time, the ASCC Division of Agriculture, Community and Natural Resources, assisted by other local agencies including the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources and the American Samoa Environmental Protection Agency, has implemented a program to eradicate this harmful invasive species. The program was successful in eliminating the initial localized infestations. However, a long pause in operations due to the Covid pandemic, combined with continued inadvertent spread of the ant via the movement of potted plants, lumber, firewood and other items, has resulted in the establishment of additional, larger infestations elsewhere on Tutuila. The current scale of the problem requires an expanded response, and a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to the Governor’s Biodiversity Conservation Office will soon provide the resources necessary to support the much larger effort needed. ASCC ACNR looks forward to assisting the Governor’s Office in this very important work.

Little fire ant infestations on Tutuila are still limited and localized. As the expanded effort gets underway, it is important to identify all the areas where these ants have spread. It is not possible for ASCC ACNR or the Governor’s Office to survey all of Tutuila for little fire ants. We therefore urge members of the public to contact us if they think they may have an infestation on their land. We can verify whether it is little fire ants (loi afi la’itiiti) or the much more widespread tropical fire ant (loi mumu), and provide advice on how to manage the ants until the new expanded program is able to provide assistance.

We thank Samoa News for helping raise public awareness about the spread of little fire ants.

Anybody wishing to report a possible little fire ant infestation or seeking information about little fire ants in American Samoa can call ASCC ACNR at 699-1575.

Mark Schmaedick

Senior Researcher and Entomologist

ASCC Division of Agriculture, Community and Natural Resources

[Editor’s note: We certainly apologize for the incorrect information. Samoa News did not independently confirm the information acquired from the National Park of American Samoa Facebook page. (pp)]