Considering all the damage we do to eco systems and how little concern many governments have for the environment how come we are so concerned about potential consequences of fighting mosquitoes with genetically modified bacteria and similiar strategies?
Only a few species are dangerous to humans and none of them are keystone species in their ecosystems so why not just erradicate them?
In: Biology
One of the most effective methods of mosquito control is limiting standing water that serves as a breeding ground. Society spends a good amount of focus and attention on sewage and storm drainage systems to help limit standing water. This is how malaria was eliminated in the southern US. Part of the New Deal was funding a massage drainage ditch digging spree across the South, which reduced malaria carrying mosquitos to the point that it’s no longer endemic in the US.
Many jurisdictions also have massive pesticide fumigation projects. The town I grew up in Texas had spray trucks that came around weekly at like 3 AM.
Back in the day I had a natural science teacher (nicknamed “knott”, which means “midge” in Swedish) who used to be an entomologist and expert advisor to WHO on how to eradicate *Simulium damnosum*, a species of black fly (ie, a type midge) that’s the primary vector for spreading river blindness (a horrible parasitic disease).
If you felt like distracting him from a natural science class all you had to do was mention his work for WHO. He was a very intelligent and knowledgeable man, possibly one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and *very very very* bitter about his work for WHO.
WHO have tried to eradicate *simulium damnosum* since the 1960s, and the only way to do it permanently would be to rebuild every river and stream in Africa so that on the entire continent there isn’t a single waterway or irrigation channel flowing at the speeds that this particular species of blackfly needs to lay its eggs. Everything else has been tried, everything from massive chembombing campaigns to bio warfare to…everything (usually with massive collateral damage to other wildlife). And every step of the way they had to fight corruption and the fact that it just wasn’t widespread knowledge how to make sure that you didn’t build a new breeding ground for that blackfly whenever there was a new irrigation project etc.
It’s 2024, over 60 years later and Knott has been dead for almost two decades now. *Simulium damnosum* is still around and river blindness is still a huge problem.
The tl;dr version: People have tried. It’s not easy to do because mosquitos and midges are adapted to insane predator pressure and almost nothing works. without causing a wasteland (and sometimes not even that works).
They seriously outnumber us.
[a lot of mosquitoes out there ](https://www.reddit.com/r/estimation/s/X4ulCeWgzT)
They say that the world would be over-ran if it wasn’t for spiders and bats.
Because while we are indeed very good at killing everything in a given area, we are far worse at killing just one specific thing and nothing else.
Because it would be difficult to kill just the mosquitos and not kill other, very important insects. Anything that is effective in killing mosquitos will likely be effective in killing things we don’t necessarily want to kill.
What makes you think we don’t?
The problem is everything else it takes out. Then it is in the water. Law of unintended consequences. Mother Nature fixes most things if we let her. Purple Martins are an example of a natural solution.
Because of things like this. https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/
Wolves were originally eliminated from the ecosystem with a ton of unintended consequences. The lesson is that even the best intentions can have an unknowable number of adverse consequences.
What happens if we get rid of mosquitoes which decimates the bat population which then significantly impacts the fertilization of the rain forest causing desertification. We have no idea if this would happen and that’s the problem. Or worse, those predators die off and another insect that they hunted causes even worse damage/diseases.
$$$
Also, fear of environmental consequences. We did go all out against them back in the 40s and 50 with DDT. Its why we don’t have malaria and yellow fever in the southern US. However, it had some consequences for birds and other parts of the ecosystem.
Answer- they do. I’m in Florida. They have county mosquito control departments here!! They do spraying which helps, and all sorts of management including education. The problem is eliminating just the bad mosquitoes and not the native ones is hard. And some can reproduce in just a bottle cap sized amount of water.
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