Zeeland has conceded defeat in its battle against the Asian hornet, acknowledging the insect’s permanent establishment in the Netherlands. The province, which recorded a fourfold increase in hornet sightings this year compared to last, has exhausted its control budget and will now focus on managing the nuisance caused by the invasive species.

The province received twelve hundred reports this year, four times as many as last year. In 2022, only nineteen nests were reported.

Since 2017, the Asian hornet has spread through the Netherlands. Due to the threat they pose to native pollinators, the hornets are being combated.

The province wrote in the announcement, “The Asian hornet has now definitively established itself in the Netherlands. This means that it is impossible to eradicate this species in our country. (…) The same thing happened much earlier in Belgium. Eventually, eradication there was also impossible, and the Asian hornets crossed the border.”

Beekeepers on Walcheren have turned to technology, attaching small transmitters to hornets to track them to their nests for removal.

The struggle against the Asian hornet is just one example of the ongoing conflict between humans and invasive species in nature, with other notable examples including Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed, rose-ringed parakeets, and red swamp crayfish.