{"id":56665,"date":"2017-02-22T14:32:40","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T00:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=56665"},"modified":"2019-02-28T14:56:53","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T00:56:53","slug":"birth-control-for-mosquitoes-targeted-at-saving-hawaiian-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2017\/02\/22\/birth-control-for-mosquitoes-targeted-at-saving-hawaiian-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Birth control for mosquitoes targeted at saving Hawaiian birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zb4D7R9CpKk?showinfo=0\" title=\"Youtube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_56694\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-56694\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/manoa-hilo-mosquito-birth-control.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/manoa-hilo-mosquito-birth-control-260x146.jpg\" alt=\"Hawaiian Honeycreeper on o\u2018hia flower\" width=\"260\" height=\"146\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-56694\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/manoa-hilo-mosquito-birth-control-260x146.jpg 260w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/manoa-hilo-mosquito-birth-control.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-56694\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hawaiian Honeycreeper, photo credit Hayataro Sakitsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To protect <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8217;s unique, imperiled native birds, researchers from the <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/\"><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo<\/a> are teaming up with the <a href=\"http:\/\/dlnr.hawaii.gov\/\">Department of Land and Natural Resources<\/a> (DLNR) and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fws.gov\/\">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service<\/a> to adapt a &lsquo;birth control&rsquo; method used across the U.S. mainland to control mosquitoes. The scientists are taking the first steps to adapt a safe, targeted and efficient mosquito control method known as Incompatible Insect Technique to reduce the population of the disease-carrying mosquitoes that harm native birds in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Incompatible Insect Technique acts like a birth control method for mosquitoes and it has already been adopted and proven successful around the country and the world to protect human health and quality of life. A similar method has been used in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> for decades to control fruit fly pests which are harmful to local agricultural products.<\/p>\n<p>Mosquitos are a nuisance and a hazard both to people and to <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8217;s native birds, which are in danger of extinction from decades of habitat loss, predation and diseases like avian malaria and avian pox.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We are already seeing the loss on <span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span> of the safe havens of higher elevation forests for our native birds. Mosquito-spread diseases are decimating bird populations and if we do nothing we could lose several more species in the next 10 years,&rdquo; said Cynthia King, an entomologist with <abbr>DLNR<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n<p>Just one of the 6 types of mosquitoes found in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> harms native birds&#8212;<em>Culex quinquefasciatus<\/em>. Scientists and conservationists are working together to use a bacteria that is naturally-occuring in fruit flies in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. It is called <em>Wolbachia<\/em>, and the research, which will be done in controlled laboratory settings, involves giving the male mosquitoes a different strain of <em>Wolbachia<\/em> than is normally found in them, to prevent them from producing offspring. To reproduce, most mosquitoes carry a type of this <em>Wolbachia<\/em> in their system. When male mosquitoes with the different strain of <em>Wolbachia<\/em> try to mate with females, there are no offspring. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The process for mosquitoes is very similar to techniques that have been used for many decades in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> to control pest fruit flies for the benefit of agriculture,&rdquo; said King. &ldquo;It doesn\u2019t eradicate the insect, but helps to safely reduce the population on a landscape scale without the use of pesticides and without harming any other species.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/governor.hawaii.gov\/newsroom\/latest-news\/dlnr-news-release-birth-control-for-mosquitoes-targeted-at-saving-unique-imperiled-hawaiian-birds\/\">Read more about the efforts to reduce the mosquito population.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<em>A Department of Land and Natural Resources news release<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Â鶹´«Ã½Manoa and Â鶹´«Ã½Hilo scientists are working to reduce the population of mosquitoes that threaten native bird species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":56693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,12],"tags":[364,14,9,56],"class_list":["post-56665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-video","tag-entomology","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/manoa-hilo-mosquito-birth-control-f.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56665"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78890,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56665\/revisions\/78890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}