The Daily Trail:
Abbey Powell is throwing numbers around like a presidential candidate… $5 Billion? With a B?? Who keeps track of that number? This paper, which appears to be written by smart people from the Nature Conservancy doing actual research, puts the annual costs @ $1 Billion… so not insignificant. The paper also describes the sting and it also sounds significant… So Mark and Abbey best be careful about where they step…
Not totally trusting a The Nature Conservancy report I Google Scholared "red imported fire ant" + cost and found Pimentel, Zuniga and Morrison (2005). They also put the number closer to $1 billion (Table 1). Time to retire the boring and unfunny comic strip.
Source:
Pimentel, David, Rodolfo Zuniga, and Doug Morrison. "Update on the environmental and economic costs associated with alien-invasive species in the United States." Ecological economics 52, no. 3 (2005): 273-288.
