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Comment by traceroute66 | Hacker News Reader

> The US seems to have no defense against invasive pests, plant, animal or insect, it just lets them spread.

A large portion of that is inevitably of the US's own doing through its love of intensive agriculture.

Liberal use of hormones and antibiotics in animals, liberal use of pesticides etc. etc.

Not saying no other country in the world uses antibiotics or pesticides, but the US does it more intensively and more extensively than almost any other country on the planet.

You then end up having to fight fire with fire as things build up resistance.

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Global warming isn't helping things either. Lots of pests that used to stay down south are marching north as the years warm.

A new mosquito appeared in Quebec late this fall. Tiny, 1/2 the size of our normal mosquitoes.

I've never seen its kind before, and I've lived all over Canada. And yes, it wasn't a one-off, I've seen many, and a friend commented on the same.

I imagine it is invasive. Bah.

Probably the Aedes aegypti. Super invasive mosquito species that are currently spreading across North America. They like to feed during the day and will bite a person several times for their blood meal. Their eggs can remain viable outside of water up to 8 months to a year and they require only a very tiny amount of water to hatch.

Hmm. Thanks. I'll catch a few next year, and compare to photos.

Malaria is now a threat in California. And still people burn fossil fuels.

In Europe it's not so much that years get warmer, but that winters are less cold. I expect many parts of the U.S. are similar.

Frost would typically kill a lot of species, except a few that are specialized to withstand it. Withstanding frost is often a trade-off. So if this threat is removed, many native species have a disadvantage.

(I'm beekeeper and many of the threats to native honeybees are because (European) honeybees put a lot of energy into preparation for long periods of frost,while their adversaries don't do that. It's a bit like the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. Only now it turns out the grasshopper was right all along, in not caring)

this is very much an issue in Canada, where the lack of deeply cold winters allows a bunch of critters, notable mosquitoes, ticks, and the pine beetle, to have explosive population growth in the summers.

the pine beetle in particular is problematic because it will swarm and kill tons and tons of pine trees -- which is fodder for massive forest fires.

> Liberal use of hormones

Damn liberals, ruining everything... I bet those are sex change hormones !

On the chance you might not be joking, "liberal use of" means essentially "abundant use of" in this context.

I was of course joking. I'm sorry any doubt remained - I'll try to write more outrageously stupid next time !

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