Residents are urged to attend an online information session about the invasive borer beetle
23 January 2025
The City of Cape Town is urging residents to attend a vitally important online information session about the invasive Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer beetle (PSHB). The session will take place on Tuesday, 28 January 2024, from 17:00 until 18:30. The webinar will be hosted by Deputy Mayor Eddie Andrews and officials from the City's Invasive Species Unit. Following the latest sighting of PSHB in Durbanville, we recommend that residents who have trees on their properties set time aside to learn more about the beetle including the threat posed by the PSHB to Cape Town’s urban forest.
Residents to please email MMC.SpatialPlanEnvironment@capetown.gov.za for access to the webinar.
Some of the trees affected in Cape Town include Boxelders, London Planes, English Oaks, Beef Wood, Weeping Willow, Cape Chestnut, Sweet Viburnum, Black Locust, Paperbark, Liquid Amber, Chinese Cottonwood and Maples.
The City will be sharing the following information during the webinar:
• How to identify infested trees and what symptoms to look out for
• What to do next, what not to do
• How to handle infested biomass
• How to safely dispose of infested biomass
• How to transport green waste
• How to handle equipment and machinery in a manner that will not spread the pest to other areas
The City has recently confirmed that various trees in Durbanville are indeed infested with PSHB. These trees were found on private properties and showed PSHB symptoms. At this point, the City cannot confirm the number of infested trees in the Durbanville area; surveys are currently under way to determine this.
The City will share important information with all residents at the webinar on Tuesday.
‘We are urging all private land owners to urgently inspect the trees on their properties for symptoms and to contact us immediately should any of these be visible on any trees. I would like to remind residents in Durbanville to give our teams access to their properties so that we can determine the extent of the PSHB infestation. We are extremely concerned about the latest sighting and request the assistance and cooperation of residents and businesses that work with plant material,’ said the City’s Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews.
• Residents across Cape Town are also encouraged to notify the City if they have Boxelder trees on their properties by logging these trees on https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/box-elders-cpt .
Boxelders are one of the four highly susceptible reproductive host trees for PSHB. Both the beetles and the fungus are able to establish, and the beetle successfully reproduces in these trees. Once attacked, Boxelder trees typically die within one year and they amplify the PSHB population and increase the risk to surrounding trees. Boxelder is thus an indicator of an early infestation in a new area.
The PSHB poses a serious threat to Cape Town's urban forest as infested trees have to be chipped.
Latest infestation statistics (excluding Durbanville):
To date, 26 trees have been infested in Penhill, Eerste River, among which Boxelders, London Planes, English Oaks, Beef Wood, Weeping Willow, Cape Chestnut, Black Locust, Paperbark and Maples
Over 400 sightings of infested trees have been recorded in Newlands, Rondebosch, Mowbray, Claremont, Kenilworth, and Observatory along the Liesbeek River
Over 5 700 infested trees have been sighted in the Helderberg area since 2019 to date
How to report PSHB beetle sightings:
• Online at www.capetown.gov.za/InvasiveSpecies
• Call the City of Cape Town's Invasive Species Unit on 021 444 2357, Monday to Friday, from 07:30 to 16:00
• Send an email to: invasive.species@capetown.gov.za
The City will try its best to respond within 10 working days to verify a reported sighting. However, the response time will depend on the number of sightings reported.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
