Cactus plants have taken over parts of the Goldfields landscape, making sections of land unusable for farming and agriculture.
The worst infestation, a 66 square kilometre section of land on a sheep station has become so bad that researchers dedicated a whole project to studying the area and trying to reduce the spread of the plant.
A 10 hectare section of land on Tarmoola Station, about 25 kilometres north of Leonora, has even been fenced off to stop stock and vehicles picking up, carrying and aiding the spread of the plant.
Coral cactus, also known as Cylindropuntia fulgida, is one of a number of types of cactus that were this month added to a list of declared pest plants in Western Australia.
Australia does not have any cactus plants that are native to the country, but were initially used as fencing in early settler days in the Goldfields.
The plants have since been left to take over native bushland and Jane Bradley, who was involved in a project aimed at stopping the spread of the cactus, contributed to the mapping of the infestations at Tarmoola Station.
She is the program manager at Southern Rangelands, a not-for-profit organisation focused on environmental management.
Ms Bradley said the infestation area that had been fenced off was so dense that "you can't walk between the plants; it's like a sea of cactus".
The existence of the cactus on pastoral land on such a large scale can be detrimental to farming operations.
Ms Bradley said "it effects pastoral production and can take over vast tracts of land. In the Eastern states land has even been abandoned as a result of cactus taking over".
She said while there were various control methods, at this stage there was no way of completely ridding land of the unwanted plants.
"Using bulldozers, you can cover it into a pit, you can use chemical control, but that is quite expensive when looking at such large areas."
Ms Bradley said many landowners were hoping a biological control for coral cactus would not be far away.
Ross Wood, from the Goldfields Nullarbor Rangelands Biosecurity Association said the group currently spent about 25 per cent of its time devoted to dealing with different types of cactus, so a biological control would be of great assistance.
"They're (Australian scientists) looking at using the cochineal, a bug, to control the coral cactus but they are still working on whether they can release that," he said.
Mr Wood said a lot of research and testing was required before a biological control to be used to deal with an issue.
"We're hoping as long as there are no issues, it could be used in the next two years."
He said something needed to be done soon before the succulent took over land on a scale where landowners decided to leave their land because the cost of dealing with the problem became too high.
"It's a matter of trying to find an economic way to deal with it," Mr Wood said.
As well as the coral cactus Mr Wood said another variety of cactus, the Hudson's pear, was causing big issues in the region and more specifically near Menzies and Coolgardie.
"The spikes are two to three inches long; they are really nasty and can slash tyres," he said.
Mr Wood said a bad outbreak was spread across a section of land about four kilometres by two kilometres at the Menzies tip, with a similar sized patch in Coolgardie which was yet to be fully assessed.
The association is currently applying for a grant that would allow them to use drones to easily map areas where cactus plants have taken a hold.
"The drones could be used to get a thermal signature, which should show up because of the high moisture content in cactus," Mr Wood said.
He said this would make the process much simpler as currently "dragging hoses through the bush and dealing with popped tyres" made manually assessing an area difficult.
As well as overtaking land, cactus plants are causing issues for animals.
Mr Wood said while carrying out his work he had seen a number of animals had become trapped in cactus spikes, and many had died as a result.
He said he'd seen small birds, maruspials, mice and even kangaroos that had become stuck and eventually died.
"It's a terrible death," Mr Wood said.
He urged people who had cactus plants in their gardens not to dispose of them in bushland as that only made the issue worse.
