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We have been investigating (and even implementing) ways to kill off mosquito populations for years now. I don't know why we are dragging our feet on scaling th

We have been investigating (and even implementing) ways to kill off mosquito populations for years now. I don't know why we are dragging our feet on scaling this up. Are we too hung up on potentially erasing 10% of a bats diet?

dylan604 2y ago
Taking into account all of human history of attempting to be smarter than we are and looking at all of the unforeseen results from humans meddling with things, I'm kind of okay dragging our feet. One species trying to wipe out another species should be something that should be asked "is that what really needs to be done" before just doing it. Look at the buffalo for example. A group of humans were willing to wipe out an animal species to control a different group of humans. I don't care if it is "just" a mosquito. I do not think we full understand the repercussions of wiping out an entire species.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  What about all the times it went well and therefore never gets brought up in these conversations? Like eradicating cave lions in Europe.
  - mikeocool 2y ago
    Cave lions went extinct 13,000 years ago, and it’s generally thought that was due to change in climate, not humans.
- card_zero 2y ago
  How about the species Mycobacterium tuberculosis?
- jajko 2y ago
  I am all for being loving and respecting towards nature, but mosquitos and ticks should be erased from face of this planet for good. Food chains would absorb this change without breaking a sweat, compared to what humans are causing daily. Every effin' year around 700k people (mostly children and old) die only from mosquito-borne ones, I presume ticks don't add that much on top of that. It cripples entire economies to halt, feeding massive disparities in the world set up by colonialism. Its a typical western privilege talking this style about matters not directly threatening lives of you and your closest ones. I guess you would have a different opinion when say your mother would die during your childhood from it, or saw your sibling being disabled for life from early age by it. Do similar people feel same sympathies towards syphilis or bubonic plague? Whether something is single celled or multicellular organism shouldn't make much difference.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Or Pthirus pubis (the pubic louse), if you want an insect. Outbreaks are not exactly a major issue, but it's not clear to me why it would be a cause for regret if it went extinct in the wild. (Now I'm wondering which scientist or zookeeper would preserve the last remaining specimens in captivity, and how, but that's a sidetrack.)
    - dylan604 2y ago
      > but it's not clear to me why it would be a cause for regret if it went extinct in the wild. This is precisely the point. Just because you can't doesn't meant it isn't there. The hubris to think that just because the reason can't be seen right now with the limited information available at the time of decision means everything will be fine is exactly my point of hesitation on any of these decisions.
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        If eradicating pubic lice is excessive hubris, then refusing to eradicate pubic lice for fear of some unknown consequence is cowardice.
- bankcust08385 2y ago
  > I do not think we full understand the repercussions of wiping out an entire species. But think of the children of mosquitoes! In this case, I'm willing to take that chance given the fact that malaria has killed around 5 billion people cumulatively over history.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  There are four species of mosquito that feed on humans. Taking them out would eliminate Malaria, West Nile, EEE, Dengue Fever, Zika, and many other life threatening diseases in humans without seriously impacting the food chain (there are many other types of mosquitos for birds, wasps, and dragon flies to nosh on). None of these four species serve a useful or irreplaceable purpose... None of them. We actually have studied this. We should do this. Not with pesticide. With large populations of sterile males.
SeehHause 2y ago
[flagged]
- dlivingston 2y ago
  Can you share some details? I would unironically _love_ to see mosquitos made extinct, but I have no idea how that would affect the broader ecosystem and food chain.
ygjb 2y ago
If you don't know why society is dragging it's feet on wiping out, you should probably educate yourself before making such a suggestion. Mosquitos suck, literally, and I despise them, but they are a critical link in the ecosystems they live in. Everybody wants to save the bees because they make honey and aren't assholes like Wasps, but bees are far from the only pollinators. Without Mosquitos, a lot of animals a few steps up the food chain suffer, including bats, birds, larger insect predators like dragonflys, but also frogs and fish. Female mosquitos are the ones that are most problematic, since they need to consume blood for nutrition for reproduction, but mosquitos also consume nectar and are pollinators. Wiping out mosquitos would probably be achievable, but it would also kick the ladder out from under ecosystems that are already extremely fragile at a time when we are in the middle of the largest extinction event in human history (and potentially mammalian history, depends how far the holocene extinction proceeds).
- autokad 2y ago
  mosquitos are also valuable pollinators, they drink nectar most of their lives. I believe they are also an important food source for dragonflies. I am also unfamiliar with how they are planning on taking them out. we need to make sure there isn't collateral damage or hardening the genetic strength of mosquitos
- coryrc 2y ago
  People aren't proposing eliminating all mosquitos (well, I am, but the professionals aren't), they're proposing to eliminate only the ones that carry human diseases, which is only a few and several being non-native.
mbrubeck 2y ago
Mosquito elimination has been a common public health measure for a long time, mainly by draining swamps and spraying pesticides. (The Massachusetts town in the article will be spraying pesticides.) And many countries have more recently been releasing millions of sterilized mosquitoes, which can quickly drive down populations. You may be thinking of the relatively new gene-drive experiments. I believe these are mainly focused on Aedes aegypti, which is the biggest vector for many human diseases. Aedes aegypti is a non-native invasive species in the Americas (and many other parts of the world). But the disease discussed in this article (Eastern equine encephalitis) is spread by native mosquitoes including Culiseta melanura. I expect that many people who are okay with eliminating invasive species will be more hesitant about eliminating native ones, even harmful ones. On the other hand, we’ve long been eliminating mosquitoes in populated areas with the lower-tech methods discussed above. (Not to mention killing off countless other plant and animal species every year unintentionally/neglectfully.)
- bankcust08385 2y ago
  America eliminated malaria endemic to the South through dedicated and systematic control measures. While they weren't able to eliminate mosquitoes, I'm confident we could if we really wanted to. We've eliminated smallpox, passenger pigeons, emu, dodo, and likely dozens of late Pleistocene American megafauna herbivores.

dylan604 2y ago

Taking into account all of human history of attempting to be smarter than we are and looking at all of the unforeseen results from humans meddling with things, I'm kind of okay dragging our feet. One species trying to wipe out another species should be something that should be asked "is that what really needs to be done" before just doing it. Look at the buffalo for example. A group of humans were willing to wipe out an animal species to control a different group of humans. I don't care if it is "just" a mosquito. I do not think we full understand the repercussions of wiping out an entire species.

lupusreal 2y ago
What about all the times it went well and therefore never gets brought up in these conversations? Like eradicating cave lions in Europe.
- mikeocool 2y ago
  Cave lions went extinct 13,000 years ago, and it’s generally thought that was due to change in climate, not humans.
card_zero 2y ago
How about the species Mycobacterium tuberculosis?
jajko 2y ago
I am all for being loving and respecting towards nature, but mosquitos and ticks should be erased from face of this planet for good. Food chains would absorb this change without breaking a sweat, compared to what humans are causing daily. Every effin' year around 700k people (mostly children and old) die only from mosquito-borne ones, I presume ticks don't add that much on top of that. It cripples entire economies to halt, feeding massive disparities in the world set up by colonialism. Its a typical western privilege talking this style about matters not directly threatening lives of you and your closest ones. I guess you would have a different opinion when say your mother would die during your childhood from it, or saw your sibling being disabled for life from early age by it. Do similar people feel same sympathies towards syphilis or bubonic plague? Whether something is single celled or multicellular organism shouldn't make much difference.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Or Pthirus pubis (the pubic louse), if you want an insect. Outbreaks are not exactly a major issue, but it's not clear to me why it would be a cause for regret if it went extinct in the wild. (Now I'm wondering which scientist or zookeeper would preserve the last remaining specimens in captivity, and how, but that's a sidetrack.)
  - dylan604 2y ago
    > but it's not clear to me why it would be a cause for regret if it went extinct in the wild. This is precisely the point. Just because you can't doesn't meant it isn't there. The hubris to think that just because the reason can't be seen right now with the limited information available at the time of decision means everything will be fine is exactly my point of hesitation on any of these decisions.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      If eradicating pubic lice is excessive hubris, then refusing to eradicate pubic lice for fear of some unknown consequence is cowardice.
bankcust08385 2y ago
> I do not think we full understand the repercussions of wiping out an entire species. But think of the children of mosquitoes! In this case, I'm willing to take that chance given the fact that malaria has killed around 5 billion people cumulatively over history.
slowmovintarget 2y ago
There are four species of mosquito that feed on humans. Taking them out would eliminate Malaria, West Nile, EEE, Dengue Fever, Zika, and many other life threatening diseases in humans without seriously impacting the food chain (there are many other types of mosquitos for birds, wasps, and dragon flies to nosh on). None of these four species serve a useful or irreplaceable purpose... None of them. We actually have studied this. We should do this. Not with pesticide. With large populations of sterile males.

SeehHause 2y ago

[flagged]

dlivingston 2y ago
Can you share some details? I would unironically _love_ to see mosquitos made extinct, but I have no idea how that would affect the broader ecosystem and food chain.

ygjb 2y ago

If you don't know why society is dragging it's feet on wiping out, you should probably educate yourself before making such a suggestion. Mosquitos suck, literally, and I despise them, but they are a critical link in the ecosystems they live in. Everybody wants to save the bees because they make honey and aren't assholes like Wasps, but bees are far from the only pollinators. Without Mosquitos, a lot of animals a few steps up the food chain suffer, including bats, birds, larger insect predators like dragonflys, but also frogs and fish. Female mosquitos are the ones that are most problematic, since they need to consume blood for nutrition for reproduction, but mosquitos also consume nectar and are pollinators. Wiping out mosquitos would probably be achievable, but it would also kick the ladder out from under ecosystems that are already extremely fragile at a time when we are in the middle of the largest extinction event in human history (and potentially mammalian history, depends how far the holocene extinction proceeds).

autokad 2y ago
mosquitos are also valuable pollinators, they drink nectar most of their lives. I believe they are also an important food source for dragonflies. I am also unfamiliar with how they are planning on taking them out. we need to make sure there isn't collateral damage or hardening the genetic strength of mosquitos
coryrc 2y ago
People aren't proposing eliminating all mosquitos (well, I am, but the professionals aren't), they're proposing to eliminate only the ones that carry human diseases, which is only a few and several being non-native.

mbrubeck 2y ago

Mosquito elimination has been a common public health measure for a long time, mainly by draining swamps and spraying pesticides. (The Massachusetts town in the article will be spraying pesticides.) And many countries have more recently been releasing millions of sterilized mosquitoes, which can quickly drive down populations. You may be thinking of the relatively new gene-drive experiments. I believe these are mainly focused on Aedes aegypti, which is the biggest vector for many human diseases. Aedes aegypti is a non-native invasive species in the Americas (and many other parts of the world). But the disease discussed in this article (Eastern equine encephalitis) is spread by native mosquitoes including Culiseta melanura. I expect that many people who are okay with eliminating invasive species will be more hesitant about eliminating native ones, even harmful ones. On the other hand, we’ve long been eliminating mosquitoes in populated areas with the lower-tech methods discussed above. (Not to mention killing off countless other plant and animal species every year unintentionally/neglectfully.)

bankcust08385 2y ago
America eliminated malaria endemic to the South through dedicated and systematic control measures. While they weren't able to eliminate mosquitoes, I'm confident we could if we really wanted to. We've eliminated smallpox, passenger pigeons, emu, dodo, and likely dozens of late Pleistocene American megafauna herbivores.