Wild boar and moths leave £1 trillion of damage in their wake as uk 'worst hit'

BRITAIN IS BEING HIT BY 'INVASIVE SPECIES' WHO ARE HURTING OUR CROPS AND GENERAL WAY OF LIFE – AND THE TRUE COST OF THE CARNAGE IS AROUND £1 TRILLION JAMES CAVEN and DAVID

O'DORNAN 12:20, 27 May 2025 Britain has topped a list of countries around the globe damaged by invasive species. Among the beasts wreaking havoc are wild boar, beetles and moths. A new

estimate puts the cost of the carnage at £1 trillion - eight times more than been thought before. Boffins assessed damage to crops and efforts to control species accidentally introduced to

Britain between 1960 and 2022. The five most damaging were Asian longhorn beetles, western flower thrips, the common water hyacinth, the tomato leafminer moth and the wild boar. Professor

Brian Leung, a biologist at McGill University in Canada, said the costs “were the highest observed” for any country. He added: “The global economic cost of invasive species may be more than

1,600 per cent higher for certain species than previously thought.” The Government had originally estimated invasive species cost the UK at least £2 billion per year. But the Centre for

Agriculture and Bioscience International places this at about £4 billion per year. Now this new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, suggests the figure is about

£16.2 billion per year. The tomato leafminer moth and western flower thrip are species imported to Britain on infested plants. Article continues below Leafminer moth can completely destroy

tomato crops, while western flower thrips, also known as thunder flies, target strawberries. The common water hyacinth is native to South America and has been described by Kew Gardens as

“the most invasive aquatic plant in the world”. The plant can take over and cover entire lakes, damaging the ecosystem, and its sale was banned in the UK in 2016.