Invasion of Aussie Bugs to Trigger City Counterattack

Tiny Australian bugs have invaded a grove of stately eucalyptus trees in the San Fernando Valley, and city officials plan an assault next week before the bugs can do permanent damage.

The bugs, redgum lerp psyllids, coat their preferred diet of red gum eucalyptus leaves with a sticky substance that clings to shoes and creates a mess.

First discovered in El Monte last year, the infestation has quickly spread throughout most of the state, officials said. But the invasion at more than 70 trees at Valley Village Park is the heaviest in the city and will be targeted with the first pilot eradication program, said Kevin W. Regan of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

“They’re kind of a nuisance more than anything else,” Regan said, “but they probably could kill trees or cause their decline if the infestation is severe enough.”

Millions of the redgum lerp psyllids have coated the leaves of the half-century-old trees.

“They are a living, moving, growing and eating thing,” Regan said.

Park foresters next week plan to release more than 2 million ladybugs at Valley Village in hopes that they will eradicate the invasion. However, the pest is so new--California is the first state in the U.S. to be invaded--that entomologists don’t know if the effort will work.

Scientists plan to study natural predators of the pest in Australia, where both the psyllids and the eucalyptus trees originate, but importation of any natural parasites will take at least a year of quarantine and study before they can be used here.