An invasive species of ant, which can swarm and bite people and pets, has been found in Richmond.
The European fire ant first turned up in Burnaby last month at a large city-owned community garden plot.
But on Thursday, an entomologist based at Thompson Rivers University in Williams Lake positively identified a specimen sent from Richmond as the European fire ant.
The expert, Dr. Robert Higgins, is now working with the City of Richmond on a plan of attack against the spread of the insect, which has been found in the Sea Island Conservation Area just north of the airport.
It appears as if landscaping in that area in the last couple of years may have brought the ant in, Higgins told the News from his university laboratory.
Its on a walkway that doesnt seem to be used too much. Were now working on a broad plan for the entire area and Ill be talking to the city about how to control this, perhaps with baits of some kind.
Higgins said hell need to sit down with the citys environmental manager to map out how broad the spread of the ant has become.
They do sting, he said of the species. Our native ones almost never sting, but these ones do.
City of Richmond spokesperson Kim Decker said the area where the ants were found is on federal land and the citys environmental manager has been in contact with her federal counterpart.
(The ants) are very difficult to treat and remove and the federal agency is looking into what to do now, said Decker, noting there seems to be a path close to the area.
A couple of signs are going to be put up in the area to warn people.
Realizing the fire ants may be spreading across the entire Lower Mainland, Higgins recently held a meeting with environmental managers from various cities, including Richmond, to discuss how to manage them.
We will have to work out who people need to contact, where they go to identify if it is the fire ant and we will need to hold some workshops to help people know how to identify the ant, he said.
In Burnaby, gardeners with plots in the citys largest community garden are fighting the invasive European fire ant infestation.
The ants have been spotted in community garden plots at the Burnaby and Region Allotment Gardens, a 5.9-hectare swath of farmland in South Burnaby, and gardeners there have been bitten.
Its a painful bite in a sense, said one of the gardeners.
It feels like youve been pricked by something really hard, like a hot pin, and then it swells up like a welt, but different people react differently.
Higgins, who specializes in ants, said the European fire ant acts differently here in B.C.
It doesnt behave this way at all in Europe. While it does have a tendency to sting there, its nowhere near as aggressive, and it doesnt appear to form colonies nearly as dense as it does in North America, he said.
Higgins said there have been two cases that he knows of, one in Burnaby and one in Vancouver, of people who had to go to emergency because of unusual swelling following stings by European fire ants.
The ant is about four millimetres long, skinny and red, but its aggressive behaviour sets it apart.
(If its) swarming and stinging, it probably is the European fire ant, Higgins said. But to confirm the identity, we would have to get it under a microscope.
With a file from the Burnaby Now
