WARNING: WA holiday homes at risk as creepy crawlies invade

Despite its rampant spread throughout Perth, a gardening guru and western suburbs councillor has warned residents to remain vigilant against an insidious beetle — especially while on vacation.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development initially put a few local governments in a quarantine zone to contain the spread of the polyphagous shot-hole borer after it was first detected in an East Fremantle street tree in August 2021.

But due to the bug’s spread in 18 months, the quarantine zone — which limits the removal of bark and transfer of items such as pot plants, firewood and tree prunings — now includes much of the metropolitan area.

The City of Nedlands removed two fig trees from Bishop Road Reserve on the long weekend and the Town of Claremont recently revealed large fig trees would be removed from Lake Claremont over the coming weeks.

Local horticulturalist and landscape designer Kate Main — who is also a Claremont councillor — said if the beetle escaped from Perth and got into fruit tree growing areas, it could be “devastating for agriculture in WA”.

“People in the western suburbs have to realise they can’t be complacent about moving wood or buying plants and taking them down to their holiday houses,” Ms Main said.

“Some people probably aren’t taking any notice of the warnings because they don’t have a big old tree, but you have to think about the wider implications for agriculture.”

Ms Main said the signs of shot-hole borers were easy to spot as the beetles left little holes in trees, but that there was a danger residents may conclude that given the beetle exists throughout Perth “there’s nothing we can do about it”.

“We still can stop it spreading from outside of Perth,” she said.

“DPIRD has done amazing things with other insects. We don’t have foot and mouth disease or the European wasps.”

Ms Main said the beetle could severely damage the leafy character of streets in the western suburbs and it was critical to remove or prune trees as quickly as possible to slow the spread.

“If we just let it go without action, there will be a lot more trees dying more quickly,” she said.