Spiders on the march in Kambalda

This is an article by Phillipa Prior which appeared on page one of the Kalgoorlie Miner on Thursday, July 12, 2007. The image was created by Greg Tossel …

Poisonous spiders caused fear in Kambalda this week and forced the closure of the town’s playgroup.

Demolition worker Porky DeJong discovered a potentially dangerous red-headed mouse spider while knocking down the old Kambalda West Hall and informed health authorities and the shire.

“We sort of played with it, but it would roll on its back and then jump back on its feet again. It didn’t actually attack us,” he said.

“But from what I can gather, they are quite poisonous and quite dangerous.”

Email warnings circulated throughout the town.

“It seems that a nest of these red-headed mouse spiders has been disturbed. These spiders have started to move around town and one was found yesterday in the school library!” the email read.

“These spiders are highly venomous and as far as we are aware there is no anti-venom in Western Australia for this type of spider. I hope you will keep an eye out around your home and call CALM if one is discovered.”

Kambalda West Playgroup president Amanda Stutley closed the group on Monday in response to growing community concern.

“There had been a lot of talk that these spiders were on the move, so I decided to close it until I was able to speak with council,” she said.

“I just did it as a precautionary measure until I actually knew what was going on. When I spoke to council, they gave me all the facts and there was no danger from them whatsoever.

“It’s been a mass over-reaction, I think, in the area.”

The playgroup was up and running again yesterday. However, Mr DeJong said he hoped more research would be done on the spiders’ movements.

What I’m frightened of is that in that area there, they’re going to do a lot of excavation. For one or two to be there, there’s going to be others under the ground,” he said.

“Once you start building there, you’re going to have a lot of excavations and if these little bastards come up and start biting people – I’ve warned people and now it’s up to the people who live there.”

Coolgardie Shire chief executive Mal Osborne moved to calm anxious residents.

“People are building this up to be some attack of the arachnids. We’re just trying to quell some of the hysteria which is being created,” Mr Osborne said.

While he admitted several spiders had been discovered at the site, and another at the Kambalda West District High School, Mr Osborne said there was no cause for concern.

“I’ve only been told of two or three being found and I haven’t heard of any more than that,” he said.

“We have been in touch with the Department of Environment and Conservation and they tell us they are native to the area.

“People are saying they’ve spread to the school (but) the school is about 300m away, where there’s a myriad of bushland and very nice vegetation.

“There’s this misconception that the demolition caused all these spiders to run all over Kambalda and kill little children – that’s not the case.”

WA Museum arachnology technical officer Julianne Waldock confirmed sightings of the spider were not unusual at this time of year and any link to the demolition was probably a coincidence.

“We get a lot of calls about these spiders at this time of the year. Usually it’s one-offs but sometimes you get these situations where a whole lot of males come out at the same time and people think they’re being plagued by them,” Ms Waldock said.

“They can wander quite big distances looking for females and they will wander into human habitation. They’re not moving in there to live, nothing like that; they live in the bush.”

She said to her knowledge, no one in WA had ever been bitten by the spider.

“They’ll rear up, but they don’t seem to follow through,” she said

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