WSDA, USDA announce eradication of northern giant hornet from the United States
agr.wa.gov
agr.wa.gov
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.
Businesses that do get $37 trillion in debt go bankrupt. That government lovers managed to make believe it's normal for governments to go ever more into debt to then tax everybody through the inflation "hidden" tax is one of the biggest travesty of our time.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plantsplant-healthplant-pests-and...
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
[2] https://www.sci.news/paleontology/ypresiosirex-orthosemos-gi...
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene...
This makes me wonder: what did these insects taste like?
Notice that humans already eat several animals that are basically very large insects: shrimp/prawns, crabs, and lobsters. According to a quick google search, these crustaceans are basically a sister group to insects, and interestingly are more closely related to insects than spiders are.
However, humans generally don't think of insects as appetizing meals, to put it mildly, while lobsters are considered a delicacy, and shrimp, crabs, and other crustaceans are not only commonly eaten, but are somewhat expensive food items.
Of course, one of the big differences between insects and these crustaceans is the size: even small shrimp are very large compared to just about any insect, so most people generally don't eat the shell, but only the fleshy insides. This is even more true with lobsters, where the shell is very thick and hard and inedible. Doing this with a beetle or grasshopper isn't so easy.
So if prehistoric insects could be so large, did they resemble sea crustaceans more (as far as having thicker shells, and more easily-separated meat)? And would humans find them tasty if we could somehow resurrect these giant insects today?
I’ve eaten a variety of land arthropods, and many were quite good.
While it took some mental fortitude to eat a deep fried scorpion, the flavor was really good. I’d describe it as smoky, nutty bean jerky paste inside crunchy fried chicken skin.
I’d describe silk worm pupae fried with butter as having a flavor akin to nutty cheese.
Grilled giant water bugs have a floral camphor note, but i find the wings a bit papery.
There were these grubs/pupae that i had deep fried somewhere in rural thailand that were extraordinary. They had a nutty flavor and popped in your mouth. I have no idea what they were, but I could easily see having them instead of popcorn while watching a movie.
Crickets grilled with in corn husks with basil and garlic are divine. The taste is subtle and nutty.
I suspect that nutty would be a common adjective.
Not group but subphylum. That's not a very close relation at all.
Did people eat shrimp or clams or other shellfish at that time? What was so different about lobster? Personally I'm not a huge fan of it, partly because of the taste (it's ok, but not something I'd seek out, though I do like it in a bisque soup), and even moreso because it's just a big PITA to eat unless someone shells it for me, but I'm a huge fan of shrimp, the bigger the better. Unless a culture just doesn't like shellfish at all, I don't really understand why they would think of serving lobster to prisoners as some kind of awful punishment. I'd much rather eat lobster than overcooked or poorly cooked steak, for instance.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/13/rapid-sp...
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
I’m reminded of the old “I don’t see why cholera is such a problem when everyone has chlorinated tap water” geniuses.
Mosquito abatement programs generally involve treating large swaths of area with larvicide at the right time, often by plane.
The reason counties in state like Louisiana doesn't do that more frequently is the cost of the larvicide and plane charter along with the area that needs to be sprayed. That is a budget issue that ultimately also faces uphill battles because people will accuse the abatement program of wanting to just drain all the swamps (just like you did).
These aren't impractical programs, they do cost money.
Oh, and not for nothing, cholera is a problem when you leave water management up to people putting their septic tanks next to their well water. It's a problem of the lack of investment in water infrastructure. Much like mosquito management is something addressable with pubic investment.
The larvicide and pesticide treatments are highly effective and can be highly targeted either by airplane delivery or on foot treatments. It takes very little at the right time to have a huge impact on the mosquito population.
I think climate change plays a role in my area as well by increasing the length of the breeding season.
This is contradicted by my entire lived experience.
Where have you seen mosquitos without birds and other wildlife?
This was never a serious proposal.
The burden of proof is on you.
Tl;dr: Some species only mate once in individuals' lifetimes. Consequently, if that mating is with a sterile partner, no offspring will be produced. Thus severely limiting the size of the next generation.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340467372_Efficient...
Do we have evidence about whic his worse? Anyway, that sort of argument assumes there are no other solutions.
Countless local and regional efforts to eradicate mosquitoes exist. Opposition seems rare until you propose exterminating a species globally
The proposals are all very local. Sterile mates, for example. Even e.g. gene drives work regionally.
We'd need some hostile alien species to even consider that.
There are many, many international agreements that >100 countries agree to. The EU requires consensus for many things (what does that mean exactly? zero 'no votes?) as does NATO, which requires unanimity for some things. US Congress passes bills 'without objection' as a normal thing.
Maybe you are reading too many inflammatory stories? Humans are social creatures who are hard-wired to cooperate.
Last I heard, the type of mosquito that attacks humans is also an invasive species in most places outside Africa.
https://foe.org/news/ge-mosquito-experiment-halted/
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-key...
Certainly false; there is a lot of construction in those places and currently most other places.
YAALS (yet another anti-liberal strawperson)? The term 'hand-wringing' seems to signal it, but I can't read anyone's mind.
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.
We'd look at one map of the deforestation of the North America / United States since the arrival of the European colonization.
I think there'd be plenty of plants for all types of pollinators if we went back to such a a map.
Europeans brought them over centuries ago. Just becsuse they weren't a natural part back then doesn't mean that closing the bottle won't have devastating after effects similar to what they did in the first place.
There's a point where an invasive species simply becomes the "natural" and I believe we crossed that line quite a whole ago. I'm not entirely sure that modern nature could sustain only on those solitary bees in the 21st century just becsuse it worked in the 14th century (you know, assuming we don't devastate nature anymore so than we've done the past century).
First, nobody is seriously proposing to outlaw or eliminate livestock honey bees. They're too valuable for agricultural service. Of course, thinking about what is good or not good for commercial bee colonies is a lot like thinking about what's good or not good for battery-farmed pigs; in fact: what's "good" in our natural ecology for livestock pigs has turned out to be a calamity across North America as feral pigs multiply uncontrollably. Either way: the bees aren't going anywhere. New stressors of bee colonies will simply raise costs for beekeepers.
Second, the idea that the extinction of feral honey bees would be "devastating" is directly falsifiable, because they have been eradicated from North America, in the recent past. The world did not end; in fact: you didn't even notice.
What you want to be paying attention to are our diverse native pollinators, including a variety of native bees. If you want to help our insect ecology, get some mason bee tubes. Unless you really like fresh honey, don't bother with the honey bees.
2. www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/economy/struggling-beekeepers-stabilize-u-s-honeybee-population-after-nearly-half-of-colonies-died-last-year
I didn't "notice" because people who are experienced in this field went out of their way to correct this. I'll just say that I'm not a huge fan of this narrative "it isn't affecting my everyday so it clearly doesn't matter". That's how so many things slip down to a slope of "we'll fix it when it's too late".
>What you want to be paying attention to are our diverse native pollinators, including a variety of native bees
And you don't think a massive reduction of any one pollinator would have drastic effects just because you care about this "native" aspect? Again, these bees have been here for over 400 years. Where's the line?
I'll be honest and just say you're making a mountain out of a molehill here. I just wanted to pitch in that honeybees are important to the ecosystem and you're reacting as if I'm saying only honeybees matter. You as someone who understands the basics of such pollinators weren't necessarily my audience here. Those who think that bees just make honey and are a "luxury species because we don't need honey" were. And I hope that point got across to that audience.
I think you're thinking I'm calling back to the "colony collapse" scare of roughly ten years ago; I'm not. Here's a paper:
https://www.wellesu.com/https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/24.6.1473
Also worth noting: that paper establishes a history of honey bee introduction into America, and they have not in fact been here for 400 years (at least, according to that paper; I don't have a dog in this hunt, it wouldn't matter to me if they'd been here for longer).
Here's a fun paper from back in the day where they found honey bees in the Channel Islands off California, and immediately set to work eradicating them:
https://sbbotanicgarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Wenne...
(Extensive husbandry has probably [unfortunately, unintentionally] reestablished feral colonies in some states, but a few years ago it was apparently the case that any honey bee you saw in your yard probably had an owner, which is wild to think about.)
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2023/1/19/23552518/honey-b...
Both of them are giant hornet species from Asia so “Asian giant hornet” isn’t a unique descriptor.
https://entsoc.org/news/press-releases/northern-giant-hornet...
At the end of the day, the whole argument is stupid.
1 - Announce the seeming eradication of a dangerous invasive species
2 - While minimizing "any excuse" xenophobic human nastiness related to saying "Asian"
3 - And disguise your second goal, to minimize accusations of "pro-Asian Wokery" (or whatever phrase the nut jobs on that side of the culture wars are currently using) from your #2
4 - Also minimize left-wing backlash (I've no clue what phrases they'd use) to your #3 scheme
5 - ...
I’m poking holes in the ridiculous theory that they were holding back on using the word ‘Asian’.
""" Furthermore, anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes have risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, Looney notes, and labeling an invasive species perceived negatively as “Asian” can be harmful all around. """
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/murder-ho...
If you slide it over to the east side of North America it would, appropriately, be in the Canadian province of Quebec.
Madrid, Spain is farther north than San Francisco or Denver. It's just half a degree south of New York.
It really shows how there is much more to climate than latitude. Most of Germany and all of the UK and Ireland are at latitudes that in North America put you well into "it is way too freaking cold here way too many days of the year!" territory, but thanks largely to the effects of currents in the Atlantic ocean they have much milder climates.
https://entsoc.org/news/press-releases/northern-giant-hornet...
Their guide to creating common names for insects is here: https://entsoc.org/publications/common-names/use-submission
- avoid the perceived unnecessary qualifier "Asian"
- avoid potential harmful negative perceptions being associated with "Asian"
"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
... in what sense is this hornet "northern"?
And in what sense is it "discriminatory" to point out the regional origin of a phenomenon?
You can compare the ranges here: https://entsoc.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/vespa-mandari...
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...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia_and_racism_related_...
The supposed causal link here seems incredibly strained, and I don't see a good reason to believe that they could actually avoid these things by changing the name.
Especially since these kinds of name changes just lead to curiousity, which leads to people forming conspiracy theories about them.
> Wikipedia's got a long article of examples
Wikipedia is the absolute last place anyone should check for anything remotely politically or "culture war" charged, especially if it involves discerning the thought processes of anyone in a political group not well represented among the most powerful (in the sense of internal Wikipedia politics) Wikipedia editors.
The attacker said in court that he blamed China for the COVID pandemic, mistook the Burmese for Chinese, and perceived them as a thread because they were "from the country who started spreading that disease around".
Note at the time of the attack the attacker probably did not actually know anyone who had COVID and probably hadn't even been personally affected by anti-COVID measures. The attack was a mere 4 days after the first confirmed COVID case in Texas from community spread, and only 3 days after the WHO had declared COVID a pandemic. The governor had declared a disaster the day before which gave him powers to order state-wide health measures, but no such measures had actually been undertaken.
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 ).
I hope the government is able to continue keeping the population from "stabilizing" to eventually get it eradicated. Crazy that you actually saw one!
>Although unable to obtain the specimen, WSDA did place traps in the area and conduct outreach to encourage reports of additional suspected sightings. Neither trapping nor outreach yielded additional evidence of hornets in the area. WSDA will conduct trapping in the area in 2025 as a precautionary measure.
That's just responsible book keeping. No different from making a proper test suite even though there is no unexpected behavior in the software product.
But if you really did find one of these in Canada, I'd definitely report that. You may unironically save Canada months of labor searching for a potential hive of migrated hornets.
>Not “confirmed” of course. Just like the report from 100 miles south of here 2 months ago. “Not confirmed”.
who's doing the confirming, or lack thereof? There may be difficulties with investigations if they crossed country lines. the WSDA, if reported to, may not have the authority to properly search in Canada. I'm not sure what the equivalent organization in Canada would be.