Why have we not worked to eliminate the existence of fleas? Considering they are a potent carrier of disease, and an extremely common parasite, why haven’t humans decided to pursue their total extinction? Especially with our loyalty to our domesticated pets?
Thankyou
In: Planetary Science
They continue to exist on wild animals, such as deer and foxes, as well as in grass, carpet, etc. They are a source of food for many insectivores as well. There are also many many species of flea. It would be too massive of an undertaking to attempt to kill all of them without harming the animals that prey on them
I love this question actually because I detest Fleas.
Any Cat owners here? If so have you had a Flea problem?
It took us almost 6 Months to get only on top of the problem, I’m still finding the odd Flea on one of our 4 Cats now and then.
Our process was Hoovering daily.
Washing everything high temperature as possible.
Spraying all Carpets and even the Cat Tree with Indorex Flea Spray.
Advantage Spot on every Month without fail.
I HATE them
I hate the way they hide In the Cats fur so they are hard to find.
I hate they have Claws which grab onto the Cat so they’re not easy to get off.
I hate their stupid Fing “Pupil Window” where even a Nuke wouldn’t kill them.
Yes please, someone kill these motherfuckers
Let’s talk about extermination broadly, while setting morality aside. That creature is another creatures food source, or one of the few things that keeps another population in check. It may cause a chain reaction. We can guess, but never really know what will happen to our eco system if we just eradicate a species. You also eliminated the species, not the niche. Theres still room for a species to thrive where fleas once did. Not to mention practically speaking it really hard if at all possible(imagine getting all humans across the planet to dedicate resources towards eradicating a creature) and expensive.
Same reason as mosquitos. They serve as a food source for some sub-set of birds that likely also can eat other things, but the experts are forecasting it would cause irreversible harm to some species allegedly.
I get that we can’t just kill certain species Cus it would upset the food chain but havé there been cases where killing a species would most certainly benefit the ecological balance overall? And not invasive species I know about those devils
It’s basically impossible. You overestimate our abilities.
We are working tirelessly to eradicate malaria using specially DNA-modified mosquitos. But releasing such a modification may have significant unintended consequences ecologically, so we can’t be reckless about it.
In the 1930s southern Australia was having a terrible time controlling the Grey-back beetle which was destroying sugar cane crops. So they introduced 101 Cane Toads from South America. Cane toads adapted very well to their new environment, and basically killed off not only the beetles but the red-bellied snakes (who ate the toads, but were poisened by them). Without the snakes, the grasshoppers exploded in population, and what do grasshoppers like? Sugar Cane. Australia now has a Cane toad AND a grasshopper problem.
Who knows what would happen if we got rid of fleas?
if you decide to remove something from the food chain so many animals will suffer, even if its something as small as a flea, or as big as a whale
disrupting food chain is always lead to disaster, be it small or big. Human might be survive but how about the other species before affecting human?
there many stories of over hunting snake in ricefield lead to overpopulation of rats and lead to crop failure.
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