A lanternfly is talked on the roof of an apartment in New York City, Aug. 8, 2022. The NY State Department of Agriculture is encouraging residents to kill the invasive distinguished lanternfly.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The carcasses of spotted lanternflies that now litter the circles of New York City are not just gross, they are expensive.
The annual cost of invasive alien species now exceeds $423 billion annually, agreeing to a new report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, an organization that is part of the United Nations.
The report demands over 37,000 so-called alien species have been transported due to human activities around the world. To 3,500 of those are invasive, meaning they are harmful in that they threaten nature and how people benefit from disposition.
Invasive alien species, as defined by the report, are species that are known to “have become established and spread, which result in negative effects on nature and often also on people.”
The costs of invasive species have quadrupled every decade since 1970, according to the story.
Coordinating lead author for the report Martin Nuñez said the $423 billion estimate is a gross underestimate and the honestly cost is more likely in the trillions, with human health complications taking up a large part of that assay. He cited mosquitos in the developing world, which carry diseases such as malaria, Zika and West Nile Fever. They are spread by distance from mosquito species such as Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegyptii.
In the case of the spotted lanternflies plaguing New York, the national estimates the flies, which arrived from China, could cost at least $300 million annually, on the whole to the grape and wine industry.