Andrew Hoggard: Biosecurity Minister on the efforts to stamp out the yellow-legged hornet in Auckland

Hornets are on notice as the Government commits $12 million to stamp them out in Auckland. 

The yellow-legged hornet was detected on the North Shore earlier this year. 

They pose a serious threat to honeybees and, by extension, to the agricultural sector. 

Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says since the start of November, 37 queen hornets and 28 nests have been destroyed. 

More than 730 traps have already been deployed. 

Hoggard told Kerre Woodham they’ve searched over 6000 properties so far. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks HEADB.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The government is committing twelve million dollars to stamp out
the yellow legged hornet in Auckland. The yellow legged hornet
was detected on the north shore earlier this year. I
pose a serious threat to honeybees and by extension to
the entire agricultural sector by Security. Minister Andrew Hoggard says,
since the start of November thirty seven queen hornets, twenty

(00:33):
eight nests have been destroyed. Andrew Holgard joins me, now,
very good morning, minister, Good morning, carry Where are we
at now?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
We're at now as we've got about one hundred and
fifty people working on this. We basically love searched around
over six thousand properties. So wherever we detect a hornet,
we're doing ground searches two hundred meters out from that
is an immediate action, and then the focus is to
try cover all of what we call Zone A having

(01:09):
properly searched it. We've got about seven hundred odd traps
out but at the moment it's mainly the people searching
are the ones that find the finding the hornets, but
the there'll be a change shortly where the traps will
come more into play. We'll be capturing live hornets and
then putting little tracking chips on them and following them

(01:30):
back to their nests eradicate. Yes, way, it's pretty impressive.
I couldn't I couldn't believe the when they showed me
the cat. I was pretty amazed that we can do that.
But yes, that is the plan, and I guess yeah,
they're quite big buggers, so you can get a tracker
on them.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yep, Oh my god. So what size is the tracker?
It must be microscopic, like literally, Mike.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
It's a small little tracker. But or no, no, on
the four x So there's a process. I think we'll
have the video up on the they've just been practiced
doing them on some of the workers they've caught at
the moment, and they'll have some I assume video up

(02:18):
on the EMPUO website for those that are interested to
be able to see how it's all done.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's so cool.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, and it's the main technique they use overseas to
be able to get on top of them. They follow
the worker hornet back to the nest, the secondary nest
and then take out the whole nest that way.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Wow, I mean, I can assure you that every school child,
primary school child on the North Shore is on the
hunt for the yellow leagrner because they're all like the
number of bees and wasps we've had in our house
being brought in, it's quite extraordinary from the kids who
are out to capture them. But if you do see one,

(03:01):
what do you do?

Speaker 1 (03:03):
So the best thing is people can see one, take
a photo, report it back to MPI that way, because
there is you know, obviously a lot of people aren't
sure as it's a paper wasp, is it a normal
wasp or is it a hornet? And so if we're
able to get that sort of positive id that yips,
that's a hornet, and particularly if you happen to follow

(03:27):
it see where it flies to. And if you find
a nest, that's gold for us because that enables us
to capture a whole bunch of them all at once.
And there's I think the best thing people could do
to help us at this stage is do a property search.
So looking under the eves of the house, under your deck,

(03:48):
car port, places like that where they could build a
nest and there's a good video on the MPI website
that shows gives good points on what to look for
and we're to look around your house for that sort
of stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
And don't try and atact the hornet nest.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
No no, no no, And because it really important the
team come in and get it, because the key thing
is for us to all the hornets go in there,
go back to the nest at night, and so that's
when we take them out. Get it all at night,
and that way you've got all the hornets that are
in the nest all the one big hit.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Wow and do you reckon? We're going to be able
to get on top of it because we've caught a lot.
So that means there's a lot out there.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yep. But I think there's certainly the will and the
motivation and the resources now to do it. Overseas, UK,
for example, they effectively each year sort of have new
incursions come in, they get blown across the channel and
they managed to sort of take them out each year.

(04:56):
And they've only got twelve people for time working on
it in the UK, whereas we've got quite a bit
of resources going here. The sort of estimate was pretty
sure there was just one queen must have come in
last year set up a nest, so we think there's possibly,
you know, the number of fertilized queens that that nest

(05:19):
could have produced. We feel like we've probably got a
good chunk of them. But this, you know, we haven't
got all of them yet, and so you know, hopefully,
and you know, we don't know the New Zealand sort
of topography or our sort of climate, how they might
will survivability be higher here than winter over in the

(05:41):
northern hemisphere, so maybe there might be a bit more
than what they've experienced over in the UK. But look,
the motivation is there to take them out. Now is
the best time to get on top of it and
wipe them out.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Absolutely, thank you so much. I wish you are very
merry Christmas and hope you get a lovely break with
the ones you love.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, thank you very much, Currey and Christmas store your
listeners as well.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Andrew Hog administer for Bias Secure. You're talking about the
ramping up of the yellow legged hornet eradication. I so
want to see that video with the track is being
attached to their thoraxes thorx E, the rexix thoraxes and
having the number of people out there. In the press release,

(06:26):
he says, and I think you'll have picked that up
in the conversation. I cannot overstate the importance of public vigilants.
I'm asking that all eyes are on this. If you
suspect you've seen a yellow legged hornet, please report it immediately.
To buy a security New Zealand and you'll see. You
know exactly what they look like, what their nests look like,
vastly different to the paper wasps nests, those honeycomb ones.

(06:49):
They're quite different to that, so you should be able
to spot the difference. We'll all become experts. It'll be
our mastermind topic. For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
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