Google sister company is trialing a mosquito eradication plan in Fresno

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/29/staking-the-little-vampires.html

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[ Inserts obvious Lilo and Stich reference here ]

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But what will I do with my lifetime supply of Deet?

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Good.

mosquitoes-b8m.jpg800×446 41 KB

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This is come up on other message boards I frequent, and my answer is - lets take our chances.

And if at all possible, could it be an itchy death for the mosquitos.

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Could we maybe not have “trialing” be a word, maybe?
Is the proverbial cat out of the bag or could we just quietly stuff kittie back in there and not tell anyone?

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I prefer ‘staking the little vampires,’ myself.

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I am concerned about how eliminating mosquitos will cascade through systems that depend on them for food. Many songbirds, especially considering how insect populations are collapsing.

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IIRC, there have been studies showing that eliminating mosquitoes preying on humans – specifically, malaria-carrying mosquitoes – doesn’t damage the ecosystem as a whole, as other insect species fill up the niche.

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All for eliminating mosquitoes, but the juxtaposition of this post along with the “Insect Apocalypse” post is a little disquieting. Our understanding of the ecological balances is not all that great that we can predict with certainty how eliminating a population will cascade.

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Keep in mind that it isn’t eliminating “mosquitos”, but a handful of specific species of mosquitos that carry human pathogens. The expectation is that in most environments, other insects including other mosquito species can take up the role in the food web.

I’m not saying that there can’t be consequences or that it is risk free, but it also isn’t random. Ecology is a science and people can study it and learn how species interact well enough to have some idea how big of an impact certain changes will make, and we can do small scale experiments to see if we are correct.

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It’s very useful for melting PVC and other plastics:

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