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WSDA, USDA announce eradication of northern giant hornet from the United States
- cbsks 2y agoInvasive species (native to Asia) and 1.5-2” (40-50mm) long. I’m glad they are gone! https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plantsplant-healthplant-pests-and-diseases/northern-giant-hornet https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plantsplant-healthplant-pests-and...
- mihular 2y ago[flagged]
- bryanrasmussen 2y agoIn about 20 years there will be a large movement to bring the hornet back because a subsection of society thinks their eradication caused some uptick of reported birth defects.
- vkou 2y agoWhy wait 20 years, when we can start today? Expects tell us the hornet needs to be eradicated, but we all know that experts have been wrong before.
- bryanrasmussen 2y agodoctors want to put needles in your arm bigger than the needles of the hornet, but they want the hornet gone! Afraid of a little honest competition says I!
- heresie-dabord 2y agoThe richer oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere in a previous geological era favoured the development of very large insects. Some wingspans attained 70cm! But the evolution of insectivorous birds likely favoured the smaller, nimbler insect variants.[1] And then there is historical climate change as factor, not to mention K-Pg Extinction. [2,3] [1] https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html [2] https://www.sci.news/paleontology/ypresiosirex-orthosemos-giant-horntail-wood-wasps-03458.html https://www.sci.news/paleontology/ypresiosirex-orthosemos-gi... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_boundary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene...
- Brian_K_White 2y ago[flagged]
- genericone 2y agoThese topic-adjacent expert responses just reek of point harvesting by an LLM, I didn't do any such downvoting, but in the last year I've changed to this viewpoint.
- brookst 2y agoWait, so if it’s accurate, interesting, new to most of us, and adjacent to the topic… that’s a bad thing?
- tptacek 2y agoIt is if it's LLM-generated; strictly verboten on HN. This doesn't look like that to me though.
- heresie-dabord 2y agoGood y'all, however much I (born human and have all my shots) may have the misfortune to attract downvotes, I'm not a fershlugginer LLM. (Not sure what this says about my social skills, no wonder my dance card is M.T.) I do think that it was an interesting addition to the discussion of giant buglies. I personally had never thought about how predation by birds would have pressured prehistoric insects... and made our feathered friends so specialised and good at what they do. Best human wishes!
- tptacek 2y agoI don't think you are! I was only moved to comment by the implication upthread that an informative LLM-generated comment might be welcome here. But yes, another HN norm is not making insinuations about commenters on threads (if people have concerns, they're meant to email hn@yc about it). And yet another norm is not to drive threads into their own navels with metacommentary, so here's where I should shut up.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- searine 2y agoyet another example of thankless work done by regular everyday government employees. Good job USDA/WSDA.
- LeFantome 2y agoI live about a mile north of the border and I saw one of these on my deck last summer. I am not sure I believe their timeline.
- geor9e 2y agoYou saw one of these? Did you report it? https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1870579/asian-giant-hornet-size.webp?w=790&f=cd1b211742dce1c015b0d95fd9948a42 https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1870579/asian-giant-hornet-si...
- tomjakubowski 2y agoNetflix documentary series "The G Word", produced by Barack Obama and featuring Adam Conover as host, does an outstanding job of highlighting these thankless civil servant positions. Memorably, they interviewed NOAA scientists and pilots who fly into hurricanes to make critical measurements for meteorological predictions. I had no idea we did that!
- mmooss 2y agoThe Washington Post did/does have a similar series.
- kleton 2y agoThis is the Asian giant hornet. Apparently they had to make a euphemism that would obfuscate the continent of origin, when being from the wrong continent is precisely the reason it needed to be eradicated.
- LeFantome 2y agoThey are absolutely devastating to bee hives.
- tptacek 2y agoHoney bee hives, meanwhile, are destructive to native pollinators.
- lupusreal 2y agoWater under the bridge. Nobody serious proposes the eradication of European honey bees in North America, nor cites them as a reason to not manage other invasive species.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoThe eradication of honey bees would create a crisis on the level of climate change. The amount of tech and labor needed to sustain such an eco system that bees simply do as a built-in part of life would unironically cost into the trillions of dollars.
- ianburrell 2y agoThere are hundreds of kinds of native solitary bees that pollinate in the wild. They would do better without competition from honey bees. More important is to have native plants and wild places for them. Honey bees are livestock. They are important for pollinating crops and producing honey. But we shouldn't consider them important part of ecosystem. In my yard, I planted native plants and got more bumblebees and other native bees which are hard to tell from flies.
- LeFantome 2y agoI live about a mile north of the border and I saw one of these on my deck last summer. They are massive. I do not buy the official timeline. Not “confirmed” of course. Just like the report from 100 miles south of here 2 months ago. “Not confirmed”. They do not believe the “eradication” announcement either clearly as they plan to continue search and trapping efforts throughout 2025 ( from the article ).
- freeqaz 2y agoDang, that is unfortunate. I come here to comment that I'm really happy this happened. It is something that legit worries me. Bee populations are already suffering enough! I hope the government is able to continue keeping the population from "stabilizing" to eventually get it eradicated. Crazy that you actually saw one!
- olyjohn 2y agoWe have huge-ass hornets here in the PNW. I've seen lots of them myself. They definitely weren't the northern giants. But they're pretty close in size. I can see though people taking more notice of the existing ones after all the media coverage of the invasive ones.
- Modified3019 2y agoLikely cicada killers. I’ll never forget the first time I saw one as a child: https://www.njbeekeepers.org/images/Vespa%20mandarinia%20and%20lookalikes.jpg https://www.njbeekeepers.org/images/Vespa%20mandarinia%20and...
- toyg 2y agoWhich border would that be?
- derektank 2y agoUSA-Canada / Washington-British Columbia
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoWhy can agricultural interests get their shit together on eradicating a harmful species while when it comes to human health, eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes leads to endless hand wringing about playing god and whatnot?
- geor9e 2y agoBy attaching trackers to a few captured hornets they were able to find all of the nests. If only eradicating mosquitoes was that easy.
- cogman10 2y agoEradicating mosquitoes is nearly that easy. At very least, significantly curtailing their population is something that's not terribly hard to do. Mosquitoes need standing water for their eggs to hatch. That significantly limits where the things can breed. There are more than a few water additives that will kill off a population of mosquitos. However, there's always at least some resistance to wide deployment of those programs because of "playing god". If you area suffers from mosquitos it's almost certainly because a group of anti-mosquito abatement folk got together to lobby against those programs being implemented.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- quesera 2y ago> Mosquitoes need standing water for their eggs to hatch. That significantly limits where the things can breed If you've spent any time in the eastern or northern United States, you'd realize that standing water is more or less ubiquitous. Mosquitos need very little water to breed. > If you area suffers from mosquitos it's almost certainly because a group of anti-mosquito abatement folk got together to lobby against those programs being implemented. Strong opinion, poorly informed.
- brookst 2y ago
- KingOfCoders 2y agoFor everyone else confused (I didn't hear of the Northern Giant Hornet before and thought of a new species): "July 2022, the Entomological Society of America stated that they will adopt the common name northern giant hornet for the species to avoid potentially discriminatory language" -Wikipedia [Edit] This is not meant judgemental
- zahlman 2y ago> It is native to temperate and tropical East Asia, South Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, and parts of the Russian Far East. It was also found in the Pacific Northwest of North America ... in what sense is this hornet "northern"? And in what sense is it "discriminatory" to point out the regional origin of a phenomenon?
- tjohns 2y agoIt's "northern" when you compare its range with the other giant hornet, vespa soror or the "southern giant hornet". You can compare the ranges here: https://entsoc.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/vespa-mandarinia-soror-range-map.png https://entsoc.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/vespa-mandari...
- KingOfCoders 2y agoWhich I now learned, is "invading" Europe (The southern giant hornet), thanks. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11549532/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11549532/
- tzs 2y ago> ... in what sense is this hornet "northern"? All hornets are native or common to Asia (the North American native insects commonly referred to as hornets are actually yellowjackets), so calling something an "Asian hornet" or even "Asian giant hornet" doesn't really tell you much. It thus makes sense when coming up with a common name for a hornet species to pick something that distinguishes it from the other hornets, such as where its range is relative to others. As to why they avoid regional origins in common names, the the Entomological Society of America says [1]: > "Common names are an important tool for entomologists to communicate with the public about insects and insect science," says ESA President Jessica Ware, Ph.D. "Northern giant hornet is both scientifically accurate and easy to understand, and it avoids evoking fear or discrimination." [...] > In 2021, ESA adopted new guidelines for acceptable insect common names, which bar names referring to ethnic or racial groups and names that might stoke fear; the policies also discourage geographic references, particularly for invasive species. The Society also launched the Better Common Names Project, an effort to review and replace insect common names that may be inappropriate or offensive. No common name for Vespa mandarinia has been previously adopted by ESA, and neither name used in popular discourse meets ESA's guidelines. [...] > Amid a rise in hate crimes and discrimination against people of Asian descent, usage of "Asian" in the name of a pest insect can unintentionally bolster anti-Asian sentiment. And, from a taxonomic perspective, all hornets—22 species of wasps in the genus Vespa—are native or common to Asia, meaning "Asian giant hornet" does not convey unique information about the biology or behavior of the species Vespa mandarinia. They cite a news report on the rise in anti-Asian violence in the US. They probably want to avoid things like this, one of the examples from that news report: > In March 2020, Bawi Cung and his 6-year-old son were attacked by a man armed with a knife at a Sam’s Club in Midland, Texas. The man, who later pleaded guilty to hate-crime charges, thought the Burmese American family was Chinese and blamed them for COVID-19. There are a lot of complete morons who if something bad in the news is labeled as the "X something" where X is a country, region, religion, or probably anything else that is associated with an identifiable group will think any random individual they encounter from that group personally bears significant responsibility for that bad thing. Wikipedia's got a long article of examples where the something was COVID [2]. [1] https://entsoc.org/news/press-releases/northern-giant-hornet-common-name-vespa-mandarinia https://entsoc.org/news/press-releases/northern-giant-hornet... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia_and_racism_related_...
- zabzonk 2y agoApparently they are being controlled quite well in the UK at the moment. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/13/rapid-spread-of-bee-killing-asian-hornets-halted-in-uk https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/13/rapid-sp...
- HeckFeck 2y agoI did my part. Five years ago, while I was driving one of the blighters landed on my windscreen. I pushed the wiper lever to rinse, expecting it to swipe him away. Instead it beat him down to my air intake vent, and he was sucked into the AC system. I made sure to warn the mechanic of what lurked down there when I brought the car for her annual service.
- pjbeam 2y agoDid your mechanic visit happen soon thereafter? Was it alive?
- HeckFeck 2y agoThe visit was a few months afterwards, and he changed the air filters without comment. If it was still alive, or mutated into something ungodly, I would've known. Unless the mechanic is now host to something worse, and that's the reason he didn't speak... I think I'll change mechanic for good measure.
- hocuspocus 2y agoNot the same Asian hornet, in Europe we have Vespa velutina vs mandarinia in the PNW. Our invasion was traced back to 2004 when a queen was supposedly brought from China to France through the port of Bordeaux. The spread is very much not controlled in Mediterranean countries, but I believe beekeepers have adapted.
- snickmy 2y agoWhat's the expected longevity of the solutions put in place? I mean, doesn't just take a swarm migration outside state border to reverse the trend?
- jmclnx 2y agoVery nice and a bit of a surprise to me. I hope they are correct. But unless some form of full inspections or spraying N/S America wide for containers coming from overseas, we will probably have more of these. With the direction/trend of the "US Gov." being run as a business for the past 40 years, I believe we could very well see these hornets arrive in other areas. IIRC, there is a insect in the East that is killing millions of trees which arrived 10 or 20 years ago. I forgot the details but eradicating them is now impossible.
- pavel_lishin 2y agoYou're probably thinking of the Spotted Lanternfly, which people of all ages take great satisfaction in trying to stomp whenever we see them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_lanternfly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_lanternfly
- BrentShikoski 2y agoMore likely the Emerald ash borer, extremely destructive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer
- JacobHenner 2y agoOr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_long-horned_beetle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_long-horned_beetle
- thfuran 2y agoThe ash borer had been here long enough to spread way beyond just the east.
- generic92034 2y agoIs it really worse than the members of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_beetle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_beetle subfamily? They are able to destroy whole forests if the trees are under stress (drought, pollution, acid rain) already. But they should be nothing new.
- bluSCALE4 2y agoGreat, pesticides next.
- dirtysanchez 2y ago[dead]
- user3939382 2y agoCan we do the emerald ash borer next :(
- xattt 2y agoToo far gone …
- dyauspitr 2y agoToo late, pretty much invisible unless we use some kind of genetic agent.
- pfdietz 2y agoSome insects can be eradicated by release of sterilized males, but I doubt the EAB is one of them.
- stronglikedan 2y agoright after the spotted lanternfly (i.e., likely never)
- evanjrowley 2y agoI had these around my house earlier this year. Hopefully they really are gone...
- xedrac 2y agoGiant hornets all got diabetes on the Standard American Diet and died... is my working theory.
- bux93 2y agoThe headline conjures up an image of one giant hornet, rampaging through US cities like Godzilla, carrying a hockey stick to underline its northern/Canadian affiliation.