(The Center Square) – The Washington State Department of Agriculture has received a report of a possible sighting of the northern giant hornet in the Burley area near the city of Port Orchard in Kitsap County, the WSDA said in a social media post on Monday.
The agency said it’s in the process of investigating the suspected sighting of the world’s largest hornet, which can grow to be 2 inches long.
These apex predators are an invasive species in North America and are well known for their aggression and ability to kill bees and other hornet species, making them a threat to the state’s multi-billion agriculture industry if they gain a foothold in Washington.
WSDA posted a pair of photos of the insect on social media, including one with a penny to show the size of the northern giant hornet.
“The reporting party will be returning to the location where they saw the hornet in the next couple of weeks and will attempt to collect it at that time,” Karla Salp, WSDA communications consultant, emailed The Center Square.
If the department is able to obtain a specimen, it plans to “conduct DNA testing to determine how likely it is that a new specimen is related to the Whatcom County specimens or whether it is a new introduction,” the department said on Facebook.
There have been no confirmed sightings of the northern giant hornet, previously known as the Asian giant hornet or the more colorful “murder hornet,” since late summer 2021 when four nests were found and destroyed in Whatcom County in northern Washington along the Canadian border.
The Evergreen State must go three years without detection to meet the regulatory definition of eradication of the northern giant hornet.
“As to the eradication status, we are still on track to declare the hornets eradicated from Whatcom County, supposing we don’t find any more hornets there this season,” Salp said. “Trapping and trap removal/checking continues into December.”
Northern giant hornet season typically runs from July through November.
Assuming confirmation of a northern giant hornet in Kitsap County, Salp hopes “it could be a one-off.”
There’s precedent for such a thing.
“We had such a detection in Snohomish County in 2020,” Salp explained, “where a random hornet was found without any subsequent detections.”
If the Kitsap County sighting turns out to be the real thing, that means more work for the WSDA.
“If we are able to confirm it as a northern giant hornet, we’ll be continuing to trap and seek reports from the public,” Salp said. “How long will depend on factors such as if we are able to trap any hornets or confirm additional hornet sightings.”
The department plans to err on the side of caution.
“We will likely trap Kitsap for another year even if we don’t find anything else this year just to be safe,” Salp said. “Of course, as we get more information and things change this could also change, but that is the current status.”
How the insect might have found its way south to Kitsap County, located on the northern end of the Kitsap Peninsula in Puget Sound, is a mystery that will probably never be solved.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to determine how any of the hornets found in Washington made it to our state, and this one is no different,” Salp said. “It is possible we’ll get more information on this one, but it seems unlikely that we’ll be able to know how it got here. If we are able to conduct DNA testing on the specimen, we should be able to have an idea of where it came from, but not how it got to Kitsap County.”
Native to temperate and tropical regions of East and Southeast Asia, including parts of China, India, Japan and Sri Lanka, Vespa mandarinia was first detected in the Pacific Northwest in late 2019, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
People are urged to report any sightings or evidence of a hive attack to WSDA by using the Hornet Watch Report Form, emailing hornets@agr.wa.gov, or calling 1-800-443-6684. Any report should include name and contact information, the location and date of the sighting or attack, a photograph of the hornet or damage, and a description of the hive loss or damage.
