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This Asian ‘immigration’ to Britain literally stirs up hornet’s nest
LONDON: Foreigners entering UK has been a cause for some concern in recent decades, but a winged “immigrant” recently sighted in Gloucestershire has stirred a hornet’s
LONDON: Foreigners entering UK has been a cause for some concern in recent decades, but a winged “immigrant” recently sighted in Gloucestershire has stirred a hornet’s nest - literally.
This time, the cause for concern is the invasive Asian hornet, which has been sighted for the first time in Britain at Tetbury in Gloucestershire. It kills honey bees, and is officially seen as a threat to Britain’s “native hornet”. India is within the geographical distribution where the Asian hornet (vespa velutina) is known to live and thrive.
It is not known how it arrived in Tetbury, but there are reports it was accidentally introduced in France in 2004 through a shipment of pottery from China.
Britain’s department for environment, food and rural affairs and animal and plant (Defra) has started identifying, destroying and removing any of the Asian hornet’s nests. The work includes setting up a three-mile surveillance zone around Tetbury and opening a control centre to coordinate the response.
The department has deployed bee inspectors across the area who will use infrared cameras and traps to locate any nests.
It also readied nest disposal experts, who will use pesticides to kill the hornets and destroy nests.
Nicola Spence of Defra said: “We have been anticipating the arrival of the Asian hornet for some years and have a well-established protocol in place to eradicate them...We remain vigilant across the country.”
There has also been some concern over the proliferation of Indian parrots in some areas of the UK, though nobody quite knows if they arrived here during the British Raj or later.
Wild and noisy, the squawking parrots have been the subject of study by several organisations and universities, including Oxford, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Zoological Society of London.
