These beetles were found in a Kamloops garden and reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Laine Martin

Kamloops gardener Laine Martin rushed to protect her raspberry and rose bushes over the weekend from an attack by what appears to be an invasive Japanese beetle.

She killed several of the beetles that were chewing through leaves and flying in the air, and also stuck a handful of the live specimens in her fridge.

“I’m lucky enough to be retired so my husband and I were out every couple of hours pulling them off,” she said. “They chew up the leaves and I have a few branches that are decimated but we saved a lot.”

Martin said she has 15 dormant beetles in her fridge and roughly 70 dead ones in a bucket of soapy water.

She informed the Canadian Food Inspection Agency of the specimens and a member of the Invasive Species Council of BC is collected them Monday, July 21.

“It’s to make a positive identification of the beetles but the inspection agency is almost certain that’s what I have,” she said. 

The invasive beetles are highly destructive to numerous species of plants and agricultural crops. They were discovered in BC for the first time in Vancouver in 2017 and since then the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has overseen a tracking and eradication program in several Lower Mainland cities.

The beetles first appeared in Kamloops in August of 2024, prompting involvement by the federal inspection agency, the Invasive Species Council of BC and the City of Kamloops to make a management plan.

Kamloops remains the only city in BC outside of the Lower Mainland where the beetles have been found, according the invasive species council executive director, Gail Wallin.

She is not able to confirm the species of Martin’s beetles yet.

“The inspection agency is responsible for identifying them in a lab,” she said. “If they turn out not to be that’s OK too because that way we’re learning more about our insects and more about our environment. It’s most important people are staying alert and reporting.”

This past spring the City of Kamloops did a larvicide treatment of Exhibition Park near downtown where the 11 beetles were found last summer and the area continues to be monitored by the invasive species council.

Martin’s beetles were found in the neighbourhood of Westsyde north of the city centre.

“It’s normal practise to go from a confined to an expanded area as more beetles are found, then watch it contract with good management afterward," Wallin said. "We’ve been doing this for seven years in BC.

“In Vancouver, we had a few beetles one year, more the next year, expanded the regulated area, treated that area, enhanced surveillance and now we’ll know this year but we’re hoping be down to zero by taking that stepped approach.”

According to a City of Kamloops staff report released earlier this month, the Food Inspection Agency is expected to come down with additional rules for Kamloops like restricting the movement of plant material in at-risk areas. 

While the City funds more larvicide treatments, the federal regulator will monitor the beetles. If zero beetles are found for two consecutive years, the regulator will back off, according to the report.

The City spent $15,000 for its first 5.4-hectare treatment with pesticide at Exhibition Park, but staff are eyeing a $200,000 cost to continue the work, expecting to revisit the cost next year.

It appears Martin was able to take a big dent out of the influx of the beetles in her garden.

“Now I’m hardly finding any,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s a migratory thing or if there’s a lot of breeding happening, but I’ll be watching for them and keep fighting the good fight.”

Japanese beetles have been in North America for more than a century but until recently were largely a problem on the East coast.

Residents are encouraged to keep reporting sightings of the beetles including any suspicious defoliation of plants, along with a photo and location to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or the Invasive Species Council of BC.

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