This country isn’t dropping missiles, bombs, or explosives by drones but releasing mosquitoes due to…, reason will amaze you, place is…
Due to the ongoing conflicts around the world, authorities often see the need to utilize drones for defense purposes. However, there is one country that uses drones not to drop bombs or missiles, but rather to do something very different. Well, in the lush jungles of Hawaii, a rare sight emerged in June, something few could have imagined before.
How can mosquitoes help protect the environment?
Drones dropped tiny biodegradable pods, each containing approximately 1,000 mosquitoes. They were not just any mosquitoes. They were genetically engineered male mosquitoes in the lab.
Why is this country using drones to release mosquitoes instead of weapons?
These lab-reared male mosquitoes have a certain bacterium that hinders the capability for the eggs to hatch when the females reproduce. The purpose of this new technology? To save Hawaii’s endangered native birds threatened by mosquito-borne diseases.
These birds are crucial pollinators and seed disperse agents. According to a CNN report, they are now in great peril. Once, Hawaii had over 50 species of honeycreepers, but now only 17 are left, with most being endangered.
A tiny bird named the “akikiki” became almost extinct in the wild last year. As per the report, less than 100 birds of ‘yellow-green ‘akeke’e are estimated to remain.
What threat are scientists trying to fight with these mosquitoes?
According to Dr. Chris Farmer, the director of the Hawaii program for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), development and deforestation certainly have effects on the environment, but the “existential threat” to Hawaii’s birds is avian malaria, which is carried by mosquitoes.
Hawaii was originally mosquito-free, and they were not found in the islands until 1826, when the whaling vessels came to the islands. The whaleships had not been aware that mosquitoes were in the water, so with the introduction of mosquitoes, then, the environment was altered. Mosquitos managed to proliferate widely. Later, it became a serious threat to the birds. Moreover, the birds lacked the evolved defenses against the diseases that mosquitoes present.
In the past, the birds would escape mosquitoes by moving to higher elevations on the mountains, where the colder temperatures prevent the mosquitoes from surviving, but now the temperatures in the higher elevations are rising as a result of climate change or global warming, which allowed the mosquitoes to move to higher elevations as well.
In an effort to save the birds, researchers worked on a method called IIT, or Incompatible Insect Technique. IIT involves injecting male mosquitoes with a bacterium named Wolbachia. Once a lab-bred male mates with a wild female, her eggs will not hatch. Because females can’t lay eggs that hatch, the population will start to slowly decline.
The American Bird Conservancy and an organization called “Birds, Not Mosquitoes”, began researching this method in 2016. Millions of mosquitoes were reared in a laboratory in California and then released in Maui and Kauai in Hawaii. Roughly 1 million mosquitoes are being released each week now. “Right now, we’re releasing 500,000 mosquitoes a week on Maui and 500,000 mosquitoes a week on Kauai,” Dr. Chris Farmer, the director of the Hawaii program for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), was quoted as saying to CNN.
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