> Within a month we destroyed the mosquito population. We could actually go outside in short sleeves again. We were very, very happy.
> It didn’t take long to notice the change in the ecology, however. Being in a rural area we had a large amount of diverse animals and birds. When the mosquitoes went, all the birds went too. Not a few birds, not just the song birds, but all the birds. We created our own “silent spring”. The bats and dragonflies also went away and with them many of the fish in the lake became more voracious and desperate to eat, which meant that they were much easier to catch. In a short time the lake was fished out. And because all the birds were gone we got a tick explosion. Instead of mosquitoes we now have ticks everywhere. It’s annoying to be constantly pulling off ticks, checking for ticks and finding ticks attached to one’s genitals. In addition, there have been a number of cases of Lyme disease as a result.
...
> The Law of Unintended Consequences is a very powerful law. You may be attempting to do something good over here but the result is an unforeseen and negative change in the infrastructure over there. It’s funny now how we get together outside and notice how dead we’ve made the area by killing all the mosquitoes. It looks beautiful, just like the environment looks OK in Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, beautiful to look at, but devoid of life, devoid of sound and requiring constant laundry, showering and tick checks. It’s extremely disheartening to come into the house and finding a tick attached to your genitals. And although we cannot attribute it to our killing of the mosquitoes, the leech population has exploded in the lake as well. Maybe the loss of all the fish that ate the mosquitoes and leeches allowed the explosion of the leech population.
I'll tentatively add that this topic came up at a dinner with Pardis Sabetti https://www.sabetilab.org and George Church http://arep.med.harvard.edu/gmc/. At the time, neither of them thought mosquitos were an essential part of any animal's food chain. Except that I'm not 100% sure we were talking about mosquitoes at the time – maybe we were talking about some species of bats. :-(
[By the way, Grayson Brown's quote “the ecological damage […] would make eradication not worth it unless there was a very serious public health emergency” may sound clueless or heartless. Charitably, maybe he was referring to eradication in developed nations only, and maybe the full interview – which I haven't listened to – makes this clear.]
That story doesn't sound realistic at all. A bunch of homeowners setting up mosquito traps, however effective, around their homes, would not have much of an effect on the mosquito population of a rural area. And then birds would forage on a much larger area than just around a single lake with 12 houses.
Just think about it: 12 homeowners around a single lake fight mosquitoes so effectively that even eagles disappear from the area?
Can we figure out to replace mosquitoes in some fashion that doesn't feature human as an essential part of food chain?
"You literally had to run from your car to the house" isn't how you would like to live for the entirety of your life. Of course I don't have high hopes for Californians to understand this.
Tbe bottom line of the article is:
> I’m not going to kid you. It’s excellent now that the mosquitoes are gone. We don’t regret making that big effort.
I'm from Minnesota... Mosquitoes are very bad here. Yes, there are times when you will run from a car to a house because the mosquitoes are eating.
But eradicating mosquitoes is a bad idea. My hunch is that in most cases, they act as genetic pollinators, incremental vaccinators carrying the latest news of disease so that animals can react.
On the vaccination issue, I encourage you to look up Jenner and his realization of the link between cowpox and smallpox. It's a good foundation for GP's idea.
> Within a month we destroyed the mosquito population. We could actually go outside in short sleeves again. We were very, very happy.
> It didn’t take long to notice the change in the ecology, however. Being in a rural area we had a large amount of diverse animals and birds. When the mosquitoes went, all the birds went too. Not a few birds, not just the song birds, but all the birds. We created our own “silent spring”. The bats and dragonflies also went away and with them many of the fish in the lake became more voracious and desperate to eat, which meant that they were much easier to catch. In a short time the lake was fished out. And because all the birds were gone we got a tick explosion. Instead of mosquitoes we now have ticks everywhere. It’s annoying to be constantly pulling off ticks, checking for ticks and finding ticks attached to one’s genitals. In addition, there have been a number of cases of Lyme disease as a result.
...
> The Law of Unintended Consequences is a very powerful law. You may be attempting to do something good over here but the result is an unforeseen and negative change in the infrastructure over there. It’s funny now how we get together outside and notice how dead we’ve made the area by killing all the mosquitoes. It looks beautiful, just like the environment looks OK in Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, beautiful to look at, but devoid of life, devoid of sound and requiring constant laundry, showering and tick checks. It’s extremely disheartening to come into the house and finding a tick attached to your genitals. And although we cannot attribute it to our killing of the mosquitoes, the leech population has exploded in the lake as well. Maybe the loss of all the fish that ate the mosquitoes and leeches allowed the explosion of the leech population.