Slugs gone, bugs gone, strawberries thriving as invasive lizards boom in B.C.

Tracy Menzies had been at war with slugs in her backyard garden as they've always managed to beat her to the harvest, but not this year.

The strawberries in her garden this season turned out to be "absolutely beautiful."

It turns out the slugs are facing a formidable foe — the invasive European wall lizard, which experts say are spreading fast and eating everything in their path, from insects and spiders to slugs.

Menzies, who lives near the Gorge Waterway in Saanich, said she started noticing the lizards in her yard in growing numbers a few months ago, darting through her garden and scurrying under foot.

"I don't have a slug in my yard, so I can only assume, given the start of me seeing the wall lizards, that they're feasting on the slugs," said Menzies.

Most of them are just a few inches long, and many are even smaller, she said.

"However, I have seen them in North Saanich to be at least eight- to 10-inches, and I've seen them in crawl spaces," said Menzies, who is a real estate agent.

Gavin Hanke, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Royal BC Museum, said it's estimated that there are about 800,000 to a million European wall lizards in B.C., mostly on Vancouver Island, and they have spread as far as Campbell River, 260 kilometres north of Victoria.

He worries their rapid spread could have a "serious impact" on the environment.

"They're spreading fast and furious, and we're stuck with them," said Hanke. "We will have to learn how to live with them."

"The unfortunate thing is these lizards are impacting invertebrate populations. They do kill baby garter snakes. Every lizard eating something every day is really impacting the insects and spiders on Vancouver Island," he added.

Biologist Nicholas Wong, science and operations manager with the Invasive Species Council of BC, said there aren't any official management programs to oversee the population growth.

Wong said the lizards are "competing with some of our native lizards for food and space as well."

Hanke, who lives in Victoria, said the lizards reached his garden around 2019, when he saw a few that year, but they have surged to about 100 lizards thriving in his front and back yards.

Male lizards have black and green marks on their bodies with a whip-like tail, while the smaller females are brassy with a wash of green over them.

Hanke said the population explosion in B.C. originated from an intentional release of 12 lizards in 1970 after a roadside zoo, Rudy's Pet Park, in Central Saanich closed following the death of its owner. Southern Vancouver Island's cooler winters mixed with its hot, dry summers make these lizards from Italy feel at home.

The Invasive Species Council of BC said they typically spread at a rate of about 160 kilometres every year, travelling on vehicles, firewood and building materials to help expand their footprint.

"I do know someone who cut open a bale of hay to use for mulch in their garden, and five lizards came out of that," said Hanke.

The lizards are omnivores, feeding on a variety of insects, spiders and other invertebrates.

Slugs, ants, termites, earwigs, mason bees, honey bees and bumble bees are also part of their diet, along with fruit.

"If a fig falls to the ground and it's ripe, they will eat that," said Hanke.

Although the wall lizards helped to safeguard her strawberries this year, Menzies said she's has concerns about their spread.

"I don't want to exterminate them. But I also don't want them in my house," she said.

"Now, I haven't seen one in my house yet, but the first time I do see one in my house, I'm probably going to feel differently about killing them."

Hanke said the best way to get rid of the lizards is to have a "really boring" garden.

"A very plain, closely cut lawn, that's the kind of habitat they don't want," said Hanke.

Wong said the tricky thing is that if you try and remove them from your backyard and your neighbours don't, they'll just re-invade from your neighbours' property.

"It needs to be quite a collective effort in the location," said Wong.

Hanke said the reality is it's too late to exterminate the lizards.

"If we were gonna wipe them out, we should have done it probably about 1972, 1973, because once they were outside of that initial release point, it's impossible," he said.

He said humans have done a lot of damage to our ecosystem, and ironically, these lizards thrive in manufactured environments.

"It's no surprise that, as an invasive, they can just occupy any sort of habitat that's available, as long as we've messed up the original habitat that was available," he said.

"So, we're to blame, and we're also to blame for bringing them here."

Hanke said people should not catch the lizards and bring them to new locations because there is a risk they could spread further south.

"I think it's a matter of years before we see them in Washington State."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 4, 2026.

By Nono Shen | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.