America has won its war against the murder hornets
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It has been described as a ‘rare win’ for humans against insects. Scientists in America are celebrating after reports that the ‘murder hornet’ has been removed from the country. The world's largest hornet, an invasive breed dubbed the “murder hornet” for its dangerous sting and ability to slaughter a honey bee hive in a matter of hours, has been declared eradicated in the U.S., five years after being spotted for the first time in Washington state near the Canadian border.
![[A Washington State Department of Agriculture worker holds an Asian giant hornet - often called “murder hornets” - after eradicating a nest in Washington state.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/09/12/19/newFile.jpg)
It has been described as a ‘rare win’ for humans against insects. The Washington and U.S. Departments of Agriculture announced the eradication on Wednesday, saying there had been no detections of the northern giant hornet in Washington since 2021. The news represented an enormous success that included residents agreeing to place traps on their properties and reporting sightings, as well as researchers capturing a live hornet, attaching a tiny radio tracking tag to it with dental floss, and following it through a forest to a nest in an alder tree. Scientists destroyed the nest just as a number of queens were just beginning to emerge, officials said.
“I’ve gotta tell you, as an entomologist — I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now, and it is a rare day when the humans actually get to win one against the insects," Sven Spichiger, pest program manager of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told a virtual news conference.
The hornets, which can be 2 inches (5 cm) long and were formerly called Asian giant hornets, gained attention in 2013, when they killed 42 people in China and seriously injured 1,675. In the U.S., around 72 people a year die from bee and hornet stings each year, according to data from the National Institutes of Health.
