Asian giant Hornet

A collaborative effort has led to a breakthrough regarding the threat of Asian giant Hornet in our country. Anne LeBrun of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service: “ We provided radio transmitter technology that they used to track the hornet back to the nest. The Washington officials were able to find and eradicate that nest, helping to protect the honeybee populations in the area. We're trying to determine if there was more than one introduction of the species in North America and where they may have come from molecular research. It's critical because the more we know about where these hornets came from, the better our chances are of stopping future introduction. The work to combat Asian giant Hornet has definitely been a team effort. We're working very closely with a number of universities on the research aspect. Washington State Department of Agriculture has been a wonderful partner with the boots on the ground work, and then we've also had support from some of the other federal agencies to place traps out there. The citizen scientists have played a critical role since we first detected the pest. All of the Asian giant Hornet detections between December 2019 and June 2020 were reported by the public and the citizen scientists and set up more than 1500 bottle traps in Washington. And they are servicing those traps and sending the samples that they collect into the state to be sorted and evaluated and identified.