The fact that scientists are dumping thousands of live mosquitoes into Hawaii’s forests is a bit terrifying. However, the group behind the mission has a really good reason for doing so.
According to a report shared by Vox, the group Birds, Not Mosquitoes is behind the movement, which works to drop biodegradable capsules full of live mosquitoes across Hawaii. The goal of doing this is to release a new type of male mosquitoes into the environment that can hopefully help curb the ongoing plague of mosquitoes feeding on the islands’ various species.
The reason that Birds, Not Mosquitoes has taken this approach, though, is because of the state of the islands’ avian species. The main driving force behind the decline of Hawaii’s avian species is avian malaria, a disease carried by mosquitoes, which were originally brought to the islands in the early 1800s.
Despite not being native to the area, mosquitoes have run rampant across the Hawaiian islands, turning the island’s native people (and its animals) into a never-ending buffet for the insects. The disease they spread is often fatal, and, so far, has led to the extinction of more than 25 species of honeycreepers, a bird native only to Hawaii. The 17 species still alive have mostly evaded the pests thanks to living in cooler environments where the bloodsuckers can’t travel.
However, climate change is wreaking havoc on the islands, raising temperatures exponentially, and thus increasing the chance that mosquitoes will spread even further across the island. The goal with dumping thousands of mosquitoes into Hawaii’s forest is all part of a plan to kill off the mosquito population through breeding.
It’s a system similar to other plans scientists have put in place using genetically modified mosquitoes that can’t survive past the egg stage. The mosquitoes being released by the group are all male, and they’re all infected with a strain of bacteria called wolbachia. This bacterium interferes with reproduction, making any eggs created by the males mating with local females unable to hatch. And since male mosquitoes don’t bite, there is no chance they’ll spread the virus.
The idea here is to keep dumping thousands of mosquitoes into the environment so that the males can spread through the population, effectively ridding Hawaii of its female population. This should cut off the mosquitoes’ ability to spread disease.
What’s great about this solution, too, is that the local wildlife and ecosystems don’t rely on mosquitoes, so eradicating them from the islands won’t hurt the ecosystem overall. Instead, it will help get rid of a very invasive species that was never intended to thrive where it has. Exactly how effective the mission will turn out to be remains to be seen, though. So far, the group has only been dumping mosquitoes into Hawaii’s forests for about a year.
In that year, though, they’ve dumped more than 40 million male mosquitoes across just Maui and Kauai. And now, with tests to make the drops with drones instead, the scientists can hopefully deliver more mosquitoes to remote parts of the islands.
