At our AGM for 2017, Honorary Life Memberships were presented to Roz Hart, Rob and Maureen Skeet and also Mike Gregson, in recognition of their great service to the organisation. Mike Gregson stepped down from the Council and from his role as Young Nats coordinator. Joan Sharpe joined the Council and Mandy Bamford remained as President, whilst our two new Vice-presidents are Jonica Foss and John Abbott. Previous Vice-presidents Margaret Larke and Jolanda Keeble have resumed roles as ‘general’ Council members.

After the AGM, Dr Darryl Hardie—known on ABC Radio as Dr Bugalugs—talked to us about how we can all be citizen scientists in a partnership with professional scientists to strengthen biosecurity in WA. Darryl is a senior entomologist with the WA Department of Agriculture and Food, working in Biosecurity & Regulation. He is also the chair of the Sub-committee for National Plant Health Surveillance. He has worked on projects such as the control of blowflies and the Pea Weevil and on the biological control of fruit flies.

Darryl talked about the need for smarter ways of collecting information on natural history and especially those organisms that may be a threat to agriculture and horticulture or a household pest. Gone are the days when Agriculture Department officers could come house-to-house to help residents control fruit fly in their backyards, for example. This is too expensive.

An alternative is to recruit interested members of the public to take part in projects in which they can report possible pest species and receive prompt feedback from professional biologists. This works in two ways: first, it can help the citizen scientist by identifying the organism and whether it is harmful, and providing information on pest control. And second, it provides the scientists with information on the distribution and prevalence of the organism. Involving a great many volunteers makes it more likely that pests will be detected early, and helps scientists map out the boundaries of the pest’s distribution.

Government surveys, done by trained personnel and sophisticated technology in a planned way, are expensive. General surveillance by community members (citizen science) is cheap but irregular and has an inherent randomness. But the two can work well together in a collaborative effort. Farmers, for example, can see problems as they arise in the course of their work and agricultural scientists or technicians can come out in response to the farmer’s alert.

Surveillance of this sort can be used to monitor existence of a pest; the pest status of an organism can be identified and the quarantine requirements can be justified to the commercial interests involved. Also, the progress of any containment or eradication programs can be monitored.

There is now a mobile phone app and a web-based computer application available called MyPestGuide™. It can be used for identification and reporting. Farmers, for example, can select a crop, the damage being inflicted, the pest causing the damage, and the pest size. The app will tell the farmer whether it warrants a bio-security alert. MyPestGuide includes a reporting tool called Reporter. Householders can send photos, as in the Pantry Blitz, and receive information on how to control e.g. a pantry pest. Darryl said there is a macro lens available that can be attached to a smart-phone camera to take close-ups of insects, such as moths in the pantry. (Some newer smart-phones do not need the close-up lenses because they have improved optical zoom capabilities.) Using the app, photos can be sent in for identification of the pest. There is even a feral pig survey. MyPestGuide also includes tools for identification of crop diseases, with specific sections for grain crops and grapes. Reporting can be done through a community website and social media are coming on board also. All data goes straight into a massive database. The system is being used widely throughout Australia and has even received reports from some overseas locations.

Some recently detected exotic pests are the European Wasp, the Asian Longicorn Beetle, the European House-borer and the Khapra Beetle. Traps are available for the latter, which may infest pantries and is a very serious threat to agriculture.

Darryl used Charles Darwin as an example of an early citizen scientist, well before that term was coined. Modern citizen scientists can be a real help to the control of pests, both on the wider scale and in their own backyards or pantries.

Mike Gregson