Since when are we concerned with causing mass extinctions?
When CCP did a controlled eradication of pest animals destroying their crops, it caused the great Chinese famine and millions died. Mostly because these pest animals were natural enemies to even worse pests.
Yea, those misquitos are trying to rid us of the human pest, but it's just too damn tenacious and pernicious!
As far as I can tell, if it had been Three Pests instead of including sparrows, it would have been fine.
Since it would drastically affect our ability to survive!
Wait...
Nevermind.
We can't. There are effective population controls though.
Ticks on the other hand could disappear entirely and nothing would be impacted negatively. They're useless parasites.
Just exterminate the ones that bite humans. The non-biting ones will fill that ecological niche, and then you're good to go.
Opossums would be very sad to see ticks go.
At the risk of derailing the conversation, if you haven't seen The Last Wish, do yourself a favour.
If you've seen the first Puss In Boots and was dissuaded, give this a chance.
The animation is Spiderverse tier, the theming and context of the movie is very much not for children.
If you need convincing, take four minutes to watch this clip of Puss meeting >!death!<
Seconded.
There are only a few species of mosquitoes that pose a threat to humans (and several thousand that don't). If we had a way to effectively eradicate those few species, then it probably wouldn't have major consequences. They don't fill an important, unique niche in their ecosystems like, say, bees.
But we don't have a way to do that. Not without huge collateral damage from poisons and the like. There's been some promising work with genetic engineering, releasing mosquitoes that will mate and produce non-viable offspring. This can greatly reduce a local population in the short-term, but they bounce back.
This can greatly reduce a local population in the short-term, but they bounce back.
Not necessarily, all attempts/experiments done so far have been intentionally limited. If we simply throw the dial to 11 and just absolutely flooded the areas it might have a much more long term impact and possibly eradication
The US entirely eliminated screwworms within its border in a very similar fashion 60 years ago and then wiped them off the whole continent just for good measure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olj8arvfYj4
If we actually directed effort at exterminating harmful mosquitos, they would be gone in a couple years.
Last year my bathroom would have 2-3 of them buzzing around every night when I went in there. This year I left a bucket of pine sol water in there a few weeks ago after cleaning and no mosquitoes except the shitload of dead ones in that bucket. Do with that information what you will.
I had them inside too every winter. Finally realized I should drayno the absolute fuck out of my shower and all gone. I hope they had to watch each other die.
All other mammals: Will you guys hurry up and do something already?! We suffer too!!
"Destroy this nature!"
Humans: you're about to see what's called a pro gamer move
Srsly fuck those little demons
I read a journal about a father and son walking through Canada a long time ago and watching a swarm of mosquitoes take down a bull Moose
There are hundreds of mosquito species, and only a couple dozen decided to evolve into little bastards. Let's give them hell
Begun... these Mosquito Wars have.
Never used to get bit in the UK but something I can't quite put my finger on has allowed them to exist now.
When you travel to the singular island where they all live
Biting mosquotes can and do spread diseases. Knowing only a few species are a such, please hurry up trimming a few actually bad leaves from the tree-of-life... But not with "dump forever poison everywhere" method the last gens did... (And are still doing sadly)
