Should we wipe out the pests now that we can?
Should we wipe out the pests now that we can?
Tags: Ethics, Pest managementMiguel Ángel Criado, El Pais, 2025.
Felicola (Lorisicola) isidoroi is a creature that is probably either extinct or on the verge of being so. In the past, it must have been present throughout most of the Iberian Peninsula, but the last time scientists encountered one was in 1997. For biologists, this represents a loss of biodiversity. For everyone else, it’s just another bug. Felicola (L.) isidoroi is a louse that lives by sucking blood. Its unique feature is that its only host is the Iberian lynx. Specific to the most endangered feline on the planet, it shared the latter’s path to extinction until humans decided to save the feline, but not its parasite. The lynx recovery program includes deworming specimens released in the wild, a procedure that is also conducted in the event of a capture. Jesús María Pérez, a zoologist and expert in pests and parasites at the University of Jaén in southern Spain, believes that the louse is still a much rarer species than the lynx itself, and should also be saved because it is part of biodiversity: “As a unique product of evolution, it has incalculable value.” The dilemma posed by the lynx louse is the same one generated by many other parasites, pests, and species that, like some mosquitoes, are not pathogens themselves but vectors that carry the cause of various diseases. A few days ago, a group of biologists, ecologists and sociologists published an opinion piece in the journal Science whose title makes it clear what it’s about: Deliberate extinction by genome modification: An ethical challenge.
