Bureaucratic Version of Playing God

Here’s further proof that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their collectives are clueless. Embroiled in a silly debate over what species residing in the United States are native or not, they have decided to promulgate mosquito control management regulations for the 97 million acres of National Wildlife Refuge lands (nearly the size of the state of California and almost precisely three times the size of the state of Arizona.)

The very first thing they have decided is that native mosquito species must be allowed to continue to exist unimpeded because mosquitoes are natural components of most wetlands.

God forbid you are an alien, non-native mosquito serving as a vector for a deady disease. But how do the Feds tell them apart? And so even though non-native mosquitoes are not protected, you can’t spray them when they are causing disease, because that will involve spraying native mosquitoes as well. Catch 22.

And control measures can only be taken if the mosquito populations become an animal or human health threat. Well, they already are. Good old all-American mosquitoes have been knocking off animals, refuge wildlife and humans, with equine encephalitis for decades. I had a doctor buddy who spent his entire military service trapping songbirds at Chincoteague NWR and drawing blood samples to determine if they were carrying encephalitis back during the Korean War.

Native mosquito species are also vectors for deadly human and wildlife diseseas. Why is that not the foremost concern of the USFWS? How many people are going to have to die before they decide it’s time for control? It’s a just matter of numbers — just how many deaths are acceptable before the media pick it up and FWS allows mosquito control officials to take action.

Why should they be able to able to play God?