Thursday, November 14, 2024
Hawai'i Free Press

Current Articles | Archives

Wednesday, May 11, 2016
The Plan to Rescue Hawaii’s Birds with Genetic Engineering
By Selected News Articles @ 6:39 PM :: 4660 Views :: GMOs

The Plan to Rescue Hawaii’s Birds with Genetic Engineering

by Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review, May 11, 2016 (excerpts)

Ecologist Eben Paxton, speaking on a cell phone from somewhere in one of Hawaii’s forests, wanted to talk about the scary events happening on the island of Kauai.

The “bird crash,” he calls it.

Hawaii’s fourth-largest island, says Paxton, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, is seeing a sudden, rapid decline in native birds.

The prime suspect is avian malaria. It’s being spread by mosquitoes and it kills rare birds such as the 'i'iwi, a bright red honeycreeper with a curvy Dr. Seuss beak. Surveys carried out on the island’s rugged, roadless interior are finding fewer birds than ever before. Extinction for some species looks imminent.

So now a group of government officials, conservationists, and scientists in Hawaii are seriously looking at a high-tech solution: genetically modified mosquitoes.

They say the modified bugs, whose offspring die quickly, thereby reducing mosquito populations, could be the best chance to save Hawaii’s endangered birds. If these discussions move forward, one idea would be to release millions of genetically modified bugs to drive mosquitoes off of Kauai’s plateau and maybe right out of the entire archipelago.

The discussions around the first “landscape scale” use of gene-modified insects are still at an early stage and have been coӧrdinated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for endangered species. A spokesman at the agency’s Honolulu office declined to confirm the agency’s role, but said it was looking at “several” recovery plans for forest birds.

What’s certain is that genetically modified organisms are political dynamite on Hawaii. Some districts have passed ordinances to ban biotech crops from being planted. No one knows how Hawaiians would react to GM mosquitoes, but lately, mosquito technology has been winning positive attention as a potential high-tech fix for human diseases such as Zika. One company, Oxitec, is testing GM mosquitoes in Brazil and hopes to do so in Florida. Because of a genetic addition to their DNA, those bugs have offspring that die prematurely. Release enough of them and the number of mosquitoes can drop drastically, although they don’t disappear altogether.

While fighting human disease gets the attention and the funding, conservation could end up being just as important a use of advanced biotechnology….

Hawaii had no mosquitoes up until 1826. That’s when, historians say, a whaling vessel that had taken on water in Mexico carelessly “drained dregs alive with wrigglers” into a stream on Maui. Soon avian malaria followed. By 1902, travelers reported a person could spend hours in the forest and “not hear the note of a single native bird.”

In fact, some birds had retreated to higher ground. Above 4,000 feet, it’s too cold for Culex quinquefasciatus, the southern house mosquito, the one that gives malaria to birds. But these refuges are now under threat due to a warmer and wetter climate….

read … MIT Technology Review

Links

TEXT "follow HawaiiFreePress" to 40404

Register to Vote

2aHawaii

Aloha Pregnancy Care Center

AntiPlanner

Antonio Gramsci Reading List

A Place for Women in Waipio

Ballotpedia Hawaii

Broken Trust

Build More Hawaiian Homes Working Group

Christian Homeschoolers of Hawaii

Cliff Slater's Second Opinion

DVids Hawaii

FIRE

Fix Oahu!

Frontline: The Fixers

Genetic Literacy Project

Grassroot Institute

Habele.org

Hawaii Aquarium Fish Report

Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society

Hawaii Catholic TV

Hawaii Christian Coalition

Hawaii Cigar Association

Hawaii ConCon Info

Hawaii Debt Clock

Hawaii Defense Foundation

Hawaii Family Forum

Hawaii Farmers and Ranchers United

Hawaii Farmer's Daughter

Hawaii Federation of Republican Women

Hawaii History Blog

Hawaii Jihadi Trial

Hawaii Legal News

Hawaii Legal Short-Term Rental Alliance

Hawaii Matters

Hawaii Military History

Hawaii's Partnership for Appropriate & Compassionate Care

Hawaii Public Charter School Network

Hawaii Rifle Association

Hawaii Shippers Council

Hawaii Together

HiFiCo

Hiram Fong Papers

Homeschool Legal Defense Hawaii

Honolulu Navy League

Honolulu Traffic

House Minority Blog

Imua TMT

Inouye-Kwock, NYT 1992

Inside the Nature Conservancy

Inverse Condemnation

July 4 in Hawaii

Land and Power in Hawaii

Lessons in Firearm Education

Lingle Years

Managed Care Matters -- Hawaii

MentalIllnessPolicy.org

Missile Defense Advocacy

MIS Veterans Hawaii

NAMI Hawaii

Natatorium.org

National Parents Org Hawaii

NFIB Hawaii News

NRA-ILA Hawaii

Obookiah

OHA Lies

Opt Out Today

Patients Rights Council Hawaii

Practical Policy Institute of Hawaii

Pritchett Cartoons

Pro-GMO Hawaii

RailRipoff.com

Rental by Owner Awareness Assn

Research Institute for Hawaii USA

Rick Hamada Show

RJ Rummel

School Choice in Hawaii

SenatorFong.com

Talking Tax

Tax Foundation of Hawaii

The Real Hanabusa

Time Out Honolulu

Trustee Akina KWO Columns

Waagey.org

West Maui Taxpayers Association

What Natalie Thinks

Whole Life Hawaii