We were at lunch with friends the other day and someone pointed out (I forget the context) that when driving through the country years back your rate of progress could be judged by the number of squashed bugs on your windscreen, but not any more. Coincidentally, I’ve just read an article which proclaims that up to three-quarters of the flying insects of Europe have disappeared over the past 27 years. Researchers from the University of Radboud in the Netherlands have done exhaustive studies and have arrived at this conclusion, that the huge die-off is due mainly to the increased use of pesticides on farm land. They point out that flying insects have a variety of vital roles in the natural environment, including pollinating plants and providing a food source for birds and mammals and that the die-off is a potential environmental disaster.*
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While we’re on the subject, a most extraordinary project has been announced in the UK. A laboratory costing way over R100 million is to be established to breed mosquitoes. They will not be just ordinary mosquitoes, however, but genetically modified males and here’s the punch line, their offspring will die before reaching adulthood, which means that there will be no future generations. The lab has been designed to produce about 800-million of these mosquitoes a month and from there they will be distributed in mosquito intense places, such as Africa, to help combat such diseases as malaria, dengue fever and the West Nile virus.
The plan is that the modified males will mate with local females – it’s important to note that it is only the female that actually bites, never the male, and the impact on mosquito populations is expected to be dramatic.*
And finally, Sudan, the last northern white rhino bull has died in Kenya. There are still two cows of the species alive, (both are Sudan’s daughters and artificially bred) but effectively the bull’s death means the sub-species is now extinct.
They have his DNA and sperm banked, so they may be able to produce a laboratory specimen, but in reality this means that northern white rhino will never be seen in the wild again. Back in the 1960s there were well over 2 000 of them in the wild, but relentless poaching for their horns has brought them to this very sad and significant end.**
*The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media.
**Save the Elephants News Service.
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