Exotic pest detection in Washington State: how alert citizens and insatiable naturalists enhance pest surveys

This poster summarizes exotic pest introductions tracked by the Washington State Department of Agriculture over the past 20 years, categorizing detections into three groups – targeted survey detections, non-target discoveries, and submissions from private citizens. Over 50 species during the 20 years have been recorded. Twenty new records (36%) originated from alert citizens reporting unusual insects to state or federal Entomologists. Sixteen new detections were non-target species collected during targeted surveys. Only about a third of exotic pest detections over this time period were the result of a targeted commodity or pest survey. Citizen contributions and non-target detections are an important aspect of exotic species detections, and could become an even more significant source of data with new technologies.