An invasive beetle killing a dramatic number of Southern California trees has found its way to San Jose — and it could threaten the urban forest that shades and cools Silicon Valley.
Santa Clara County officials aren’t sure when or how the species, known as the shothole borer beetle, arrived in San Jose. The non-native species was first detected in Southern California in the early 2000s. The beetle was identified locally in November last year, but may have been in San Jose undetected for several years. Now San Jose officials are trapping the bugs while county officials survey the city to determine the extent of the infestation.
Officials have tracked the bug around riparian areas like Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe River. But the beetle — which has already killed tens of thousands of box elders, California sycamores, valley oaks and more across seven counties in Southern California — is also infesting older and stately landscape trees in San Jose.
“These are large sycamores that have been here for years and years — and now they’re dying from this beetle,” Drew Raymond, acting agricultural commissioner for Santa Clara County, told San José Spotlight.