Should We Kill All The Mosquitoes? (bbc.com)

If scientists could send Zika-carrying mosquitoes into extinction, should they do it? Several science and business journals are now exploring the question, and Slashdot reader retroworks asks if scientists will ultimately target "not just the most deadly species of the animal, but all 12 species of human-biting mosquitoes in the world, responsible for 500,000 deaths per year." The headline on today's [paywalled] Wall Street Journal article begs the question, "Why Not Kill Them All...?" [M]ore business journals are exploring private sector investments to eradicate the species of mosquito entirely, [and] most articles seem to find extinction of the indoors-attacking, dengue fever- and malaria-spreading Aedes aegypti a tantalizing prospect...

The BBC weighed the approach more carefully, noting that mosquitoes make rain forests uninhabitable (and consequences of human populations in rain forests are usually disastrous)... Will capitalism make the itch of mosquito bites be forgotten... Forever?

Comments

Re:Food supply for bats

[Anonymous Coward]

This article argues otherwise and says the environmental impact would be negligible: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

Other insectivores might not miss them at all: bats feed mostly on moths, and less than 2% of their gut content is mosquitoes. "If you're expending energy," says medical entomologist Janet McAllister of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado, "are you going to eat the 22-ounce filet-mignon moth or the 6-ounce hamburger mosquito?"

Re: Law of unintended consequences, also frosty

[Applehu Akbar]

You can't imagine consequences because you lack any kind of knowledge about nature.

While they are undesirable for humans, mosquitoes are the source of food of a very large number of animals. Bats, lizards, frogs, fish, birds, etc many of them survive on eating mosquitoes. Kill the mosquito and you will be killing a good number of species of animals that depend on them.

Not so, actually: out of the 3,500 species of mosquitos out there, only about 200 bite man. The only dire consequence of eliminating these is that great Green boogeyman of more humans surviving tropical diseases. Mosquito-eating species can easily switch to other, similar, bugs:
http://www.nature.com/news/201...

Re:Law of unintended consequences, also frosty

[The Grim Reefer]

Does that mean if people keep using the phrase "I could care less", then the words could and couldn't officially switch meaning?

Yes, actually it does. The term "awful" used to mean the exact opposite of what it does currently. At one time if someone was in awe of something it was awful. Now awesome has replaced it and awful means the opposite.