Should we eradicate Mosquitos?

Amp34

Amp34

Amp34

Caporegime
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35408835

Would it be wrong to eradicate mosquitoes? said:
The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, carrying diseases that kill one million people a year. Now the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, has been linked with thousands of babies born with brain defects in South America. Should the insects be wiped out?

There are 3,500 known species of mosquito but most of those don't bother humans at all, living off plant and fruit nectar.

It's only the females from just 6% of species that draw blood from humans - to help them develop their eggs. Of these just half carry parasites that cause human diseases. But the impact of these 100 species is devastating.
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Do we have the right to wipe out entire species on purpose, or even entire families in this potential case?

But destroying a species isn't just a scientific issue, it's also a philosophical one. There would be some who would say it is utterly unacceptable to deliberately wipe out a species that is a danger to humans when it is humans that are a danger to so many species.
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Which TBH I would totally agree with. We are the biggest danger to earth at the moment and even if we weren't, our meddling in nature in the past has shown we don't anticipate all the side effects, for example

He says mosquitoes, which mostly feed on plant nectar, are important pollinators. They are also a food source for birds and bats while their young - as larvae - are consumed by fish and frogs. This could have an effect further up and down the food chain.
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Having spent a few weeks in Western Australia and picked up hundreds of cane toads (in one or two evenings!) I'm sceptical doing something like this won't cause problems we didn't think about.
 
No.

They're the only way I can get my fix of humam blood without revealing myself as a vampire.



*turns into bats and flies off*
 
No - they have the right to life enshrined in European law too.

Seriously, this sounds like a bad idea. Zika is a horrible virus and I really feel for the victims but mankind has played God before with the foodchain with invariably negative results overall. DDT anyone?
 
While not infallible - people could do a lot more to help themselves (and/or it might be necessary to provide some help to those in some areas where precautions are needed) before we should even consider wiping out a species.
 
Diddums said:
No.

They're the only way I can get my fix of humam blood without revealing myself as a vampire.



*turns into bats and flies off*
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wozza2k said:
I swear 6% of 3,500 is more than 100...
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I think there was then a half of the 6% (i.e. 3%), which is around 100.

Rroff said:
While not infallible - people could do a lot more to help themselves (and/or it might be necessary to provide some help to those in some areas where precautions are needed) before we should even consider wiping out a species.
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Which is what a lot of aid agencies are doing now. There is a massive push to educate people in remote villages, hand out impregnated nets and have anti malarials on hand for any actual cases. As usual though money is the issue.

I also find this an interesting though: "Do mosquitoes give us malaria, or do we give mosquitoes malaria?"

http://www.theguardian.com/global-d...2014/aug/20/humans-malaria-mosquitoes-vaccine

But on this day, let’s focus on approaching malaria in a surprising new way: a vaccine to stop humans from giving malaria to mosquitoes.

If we can do this, we may finally stop malaria once and for all.

Why protect mosquitoes from humans? First, you have to understand the vicious cycle of malaria, which works like this: a mosquito bites a girl and transmits the malaria parasite, perhaps causing her to become very sick. A week later, a non-infected mosquito feeds on the same child, yet this time, it is the girl who passes the parasite to the mosquito. Soon, that mosquito – now carrying malaria parasites and buzzing around the same area – bites the girl’s father, passing the parasite to him. Even if he shows no symptoms of malaria and doesn’t get sick, he can still pass parasites on to another mosquito that in turn can transmit the parasite to another person, and so on.
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That said, the BBC article also mentions that many of the worst species are actually invasive. Some originating in Africa or SEA but now in every tropical area. Eradicating the invasive species could be beneficial for both humans and the local ecosystem?
 
yes.

but we have programs breading and releasing genetically modified males, that either produce only male offspring or offspring that die early.


theyre really being ramped up now iirc
 
We need to learn to live better around and with the rest of the species that are also on Earth.

They have both negative and positive impacts on other species, just like us humans.
 
scorza said:
No - they have the right to life enshrined in European law too.

Seriously, this sounds like a bad idea. Zika is a horrible virus and I really feel for the victims but mankind has played God before with the foodchain with invariably negative results overall. DDT anyone?
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Yes, DDT.

DDT had its issues and clearly its continuous use would cause unacceptable collateral damage.

However, it was the systematic use of DDT after WW2 that enabled the eradication of Malaria from the continental USA by 1951. (previously it was quite common)

How many millions of lives were saved by this? How many 10's of millions were saved from having to endure a lifetime of crippling illness?

How many billions of dollars worth of economic damage have been avoided, (Especially in the South)

The Birds have recovered and still sing!
 
No. I don't think destroying species that get in our way is right or moral.

We need to come up with cures/antidotes and general protection.
 
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