{"id":44550,"date":"2025-09-05T03:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/44550\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T03:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:36:11","slug":"no-further-asian-hornet-sightings-confirmed-ahead-of-cork-nest-removal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/44550\/","title":{"rendered":"No further Asian hornet sightings confirmed ahead of Cork nest removal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small number of sightings of potential Asian hornets\u2019 nests are being investigated by the National Parks & Wildlife Service<\/a> (NPWS). <\/p>\n

However, Ireland still only has one confirmed nest<\/a>, the chair of the Asian Hornet Management Group, \u00c1inle N\u00ed Bhriain, has said. <\/p>\n

Contrary to press reports, Ms N\u00ed Bhriain said, there is no evidence of any others in Ireland aside from the one detected last month. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe one confirmed nest in Cork is being dealt with over the next few days. Our operational window is opening today. Obviously it is weather-dependent but we would hope to have that all removed and dealt with in the next 48 hours or so,\u201d she told the Neil Prendeville show on Cork\u2019s Red FM. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe other sightings \u2013 absolutely we are following up on every single sighting but we have no evidence that there is any other nest as such. A nest would be a much bigger thing. There has been sightings and the NPWS is following up on every single one.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said the National Museum was going to do DNA testing to assess whether the hornets come from the same nest, the exact location of which has not been revealed. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is quite technical and we will be doing a whole battery of tests on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Bhriain also spoke of the importance of recovering the confirmed nest intact as opposed to destroying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is so much we can learn from it. Like how did they get here? What stage of development is the nest at? At the moment we think that they are still only building the nest but there is a lot of stuff that we can learn from this first nest that will help us for future encounters,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0How to recognise an Asian hornet and what to do Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cDestroying it tells us nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the Cork nest is removed, NPWS staff will continue monitoring the area to \u201ccatch any stragglers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you remove the nest they will return to the nest site and they will start rebuilding.\u201d <\/p>\n

An expert is travelling from the UK to \u201cmonitor and mentor\u201d the process of taking the nest down. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are learning our lesson from the Continent. The best advice is to get ahead of it and that is why we have reacted so quickly to this sighting,\u201d Ms N\u00ed Bhriain said. <\/p>\n

She repeated warnings that the Asian hornet posed a risk to native pollinators and biodiversity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf one hornet can get in to a [bees] nest it will just decimate the nest. It destroys and eats everything around it. It will attack all of our pollinators. I have even seen footage of it trying to have a go off a wasp. It is predatory. They are voracious. The level of damage they can do in a small amount of time is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small number of sightings of potential Asian hornets\u2019 nests are being investigated by the National Parks &…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1877,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,31340,5,33457,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-44550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-cork","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-national-parks-and-wildlife-service","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-red-fm","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}