Officials share update about 'murder hornet' population in the US: 'We'll always be keeping an eye out'
There's one fewer invasive species to worry about in the U.S., thanks to the hard work of scientists and wildlife officials. Asian giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia) have officially been eradicated from the U.S., the Travel reported.
Also called northern giant hornets or, more commonly, "murder hornets," Asian giant hornets are the largest wasps in the world, growing up to two inches long. They're native to South and East Asia but were first spotted in British Columbia, Canada, in August 2019. In December of the same year, they were also spotted in Washington State, U.S., causing panic among residents.
Wildlife officials have been trying to eradicate this invasive species since 2019, and it looks like their hard work has finally paid off. According to the Washington State Standard, the officials sent out teams to search for the murder hornets. They captured one, placed a small tag on it, and used it to trace its nest by tracking it with radio transmitter beeps. The officials followed it back to its nest and destroyed the entire colony, per BBC.
Now, three years after no sightings, the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and the USDA announced that the murder hornets have officially been eradicated.
Invasive species pose a threat to both humans and native insects, and Asian giant hornets are no exception. Their stings are very painful and could be deadly to people with bee sting allergies. They're also a threat to honey bee populations; they often coordinate group attacks on honey bee nests, and per the Washington State Standard, they can take down an entire hive by decapitating the bees.
Protecting native pollinators like honey bees is important because they help pollinate plants and crops, making them crucial to the ecosystem for food production and biodiversity.
Just as eradicating invasive insects like murder hornets protects native pollinators, homeowners can also support pollinators by rewilding their yard to replace invasive or non-native plants with native ones.
Rewilding the yard also offers a wide range of benefits, like lower maintenance costs, reduced reliance on fertilizers and pesticides, restoration of natural habitats, and provision of food sources for pollinators. This allows homeowners to restore ecological balance and support biodiversity while saving money.
Homeowners can also help officials keep a lookout for invasive species that threaten pollinators. "Although they are now eradicated from the state, we'll always be keeping an eye out for them and encourage community members to do the same," WSDA pest program manager Sven Spichiger told the Travel.
Should we be actively working to kill invasive species?
Absolutely
It depends on the species
I don't know
No — leave nature alone
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
East of England news quiz of the week
From unusual food bank donations to angry parents after a school rule change, how much East of England news can you remember from the past seven days? Follow East of England news on X, Instagram and Facebook: BBC Beds, Herts & Bucks, BBC Cambridgeshire, BBC Essex, BBC Norfolk, BBC Northamptonshire or BBC Suffolk. East of England news quiz of the week 24 - 30 May East of England news quiz of the week 17 - 23 May East of England news quiz of the week 10-16 May East of England news quiz of the week 3-9 May East of England news quiz of the week 26 April-2 May East of England news quiz of the week 19-25 April East of England news quiz of the week 12-18 April East of England news quiz of the week 5-11 April East of England news quiz of the week 29 March-4 April East of England news quiz of the week 22-28 March East of England news quiz of the week 15-21 March East of England news quiz of the week 8-14 March East of England news quiz of the week 1-7 March East of England news quiz of the week 22-28 February East of England news quiz of the week 15-21 February East of England news quiz of the week 8-14 February East of England news quiz of the week 1-7 February East of England news quiz of the week 25-31 January East of England news quiz of the week 18-24 January East of England news quiz of the week 11-17 January East of England news quiz of the week 4-10 January
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
The decades-old intrigue over an Indian guest house in Mecca
As the annual Hajj pilgrimage draws to a close, a long-settled corner of Mecca is stirring up a storm thousands of miles away in India - not for its spiritual significance, but for a 50-year-old inheritance dispute. At the heart of the controversy is Keyi Rubath, a 19th-Century guest house built in the 1870s by Mayankutty Keyi, a wealthy Indian merchant from Malabar (modern-day Kerala), whose trading empire stretched from Mumbai to Paris. Located near Islam's holiest site, Masjid al-Haram, the building was demolished in 1971 to make way for Mecca's expansion. Saudi authorities deposited 1.4 million riyals (about $373,000 today) in the kingdom's treasury as compensation, but said no rightful heir could be identified at the time. Decades later, that sum - still held in Saudi Arabia's treasury - has sparked a bitter tussle between two sprawling branches of the Keyi family, each trying to prove its lineage and claim what they see as their rightful inheritance. Neither side has succeeded so far. For decades, successive Indian governments - both at the Centre and in Kerala - have tried and failed to resolve the deadlock. It remains unclear if Saudi authorities are even willing to release the compensation, let alone adjust it for inflation as some family members now demand - with some claiming it could be worth over $1bn today. Followers of the case note the property was a waqf - an Islamic charitable endowment - meaning descendants can manage but not own it. The Saudi department that handles Awqaf (endowed properties) did not respond to the BBC's request for comment, and the government has made no public statement on the matter. That hasn't stopped speculation - about both the money and who it rightfully belongs to. Little is known about the guest house itself, but descendants claim it stood just steps from the Masjid al-Haram, with 22 rooms and several halls spread over 1.5 acres. According to family lore, Keyi shipped wood from Malabar to build it and appointed a Malabari manager to run it - an ambitious gesture, though not unusual for the time. Saudi Arabia was a relatively poor country back then - the discovery of its massive oil fields still a few decades away. The Hajj pilgrimage and the city's importance in Islam meant that Indian Muslims often donated money or built infrastructure for Indian pilgrims there. In his 2014 book, Mecca: The Sacred City, historian Ziauddin Sardar notes that during the second half of the 18th Century, the city had acquired a distinctively Indian character with its economy and financial well-being dependent on Indian Muslims. "Almost 20% of the city's inhabitants, the largest single majority, were now of Indian origins – people from Gujarat, Punjab, Kashmir and Deccan, all collectively known locally as the Hindis," Sardar wrote. As Saudi Arabia's oil wealth surged in the 20th century, sweeping development projects reshaped Mecca. Keyi Rubath was demolished three times, the final time in the early 1970s. That's when the confusion around compensation appears to have started. According to BM Jamal, former secretary of India's Central Waqf Council, the Indian consulate in Jeddah wrote to the government back then, seeking details of Mayankutty Keyi's legal heir. "In my understanding, authorities were looking for the descendants to appoint a manager for the property, not to distribute the compensation money," Mr Jamal said. Nonetheless, two factions stepped forward: the Keyis - Mayankutty's paternal family - and the Arakkals, a royal family from Kerala into which he had married. Both families traditionally followed a matrilineal inheritance system - a custom not recognized under Saudi law, adding further complexity. The Keyis claim that Mayankutty died childless, making his sister's children his rightful heirs under matrilineal tradition. But the Arakkals claim he had a son and a daughter, and therefore, under Indian law, his children would be the legal inheritors. As the dispute dragged on, the story took on a life of its own. In 2011, after rumours swirled that the compensation could be worth millions, more than 2,500 people flooded a district office in Kannur, claiming to be Keyi's descendants. "There were people who claimed that their forefathers had taught Mayankutty in his childhood. Others claimed that their forefathers had provided timber for the guest house," a senior Keyi family member, who wanted to stay anonymous, told the BBC. Scams followed. State officials say in 2017 fraudsters posing as Keyi descendants duped locals into handing over money, promising a share of the compensation. Today, the case remains unresolved. Some descendants propose the best way to end the dispute would be to ask the Saudi government to use the compensation money to build another guest house for Hajj pilgrims, as Myankutti Keyi had intended. But others reject this, arguing that the guest house was privately owned, and so any compensation rightfully belongs to the family. Some argue that even if the family proves lineage to Mayankutty Keyi, without ownership documents, they're unlikely to gain anything. For Muhammed Shihad, a Kannur resident who has co-authored a book on the history of the Keyi and Arakkal families, though, the dispute is not just about the money - but about honouring the family's roots. "If they don't get the compensation, it would be worth openly recognising the family's and the region's connection to this noble act."
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Volunteers spent 25 years building a WWI replica plane. It just took flight.
Last month, a replica World War One plane finally took to the skies above a Royal Air Force station in Scotland. It's been a long time coming—volunteers at the Aviation Preservation Society of Scotland have been working on the project for 25 years, as originally reported by the BBC. 'Every single nut and bolt has been checked, every single bracket has been checked, every single piece of wire has been checked. You don't cobble these things together. When you're going to fly it, it has to be done right,' chairman Mike Harper told the BBC. 'If it was for a museum, if it was just going on display we would probably have finished it within a few years. But the meticulous attention to detail to get this thing in the air is what's taken the length of time.' The plane is a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, a biplane (a type of aircraft with two stacked wings) fighter aircraft the British designed in 1914, built in 1915, and tested in 1916 in response to Germany's monoplane aircraft, the Fokker Eindecker. Though the planes were 'modestly successful,' they quickly became obsolete in the face of Germany's new Albatros aircrafts. The name Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter comes from the unique arrangement of its struts (the thin beams that support the top wings), though the society's volunteers have more sensibly nicknamed their replica 'Sophie.' For now, Sophie is undergoing test flights. Once it completes the test phase and accomplishes five flight hours, it'll be allowed to carry an additional person in the passenger seat behind the pilot, per the BBC. 'I'm used to flying modern aeroplanes from the 50s and 60s—the classics—and they're very different from this aeroplane to fly. This is very much more of a challenge,' aircraft inspector Tim Rayner, who pilots the test flights, told the BBC after May's 15-minute flight. 'The controls are nowhere near as responsive as they became as we developed better technologies. This is 1915 and it's not that many years since the first flight so you've got to look at it as flying as you would expect for an aircraft of that era.' Talk about an ambitious hobby.
