{"id":691,"date":"2025-06-16T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/?p=691"},"modified":"2025-06-20T19:13:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T19:13:22","slug":"scientists-are-dropping-live-mosquitoes-out-of-drones-in-hawaii-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/16\/scientists-are-dropping-live-mosquitoes-out-of-drones-in-hawaii-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists are dropping live mosquitoes out of drones in Hawaii. Here\u2019s why."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tA capsule full of lab-raised mosquitoes falls from a drone in Maui. | Adam Knox\/American Bird Conservancy\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It sounds like something out of a nightmare: a giant drone flying through the sky and dropping containers full of live, buzzing mosquitoes, one of the world\u2019s most hated insects<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But in Hawaii, this scenario is very much real. A remotely operated aircraft, about 8 feet long, is flying over remote forests in Maui and releasing cup-shaped capsules full of mosquitoes. <\/p>\n

As scary as it might sound, the project is a clever solution to a problem that has long plagued the Hawaiian islands. <\/p>\n

Hawaii faces an extinction crisis<\/a>: It has lost hundreds of animals in the last two centuries, including dozens of land snails and birds, largely due to the spread of non-native species like stray cats<\/a> and feral pigs. Many native animals found nowhere else on Earth are now gone for good. And several of the creatures that remain are heading in the same direction. Scientists on the islands are quite literally racing to save what wildlife remains.<\/p>\n

For the state\u2019s avian species \u2014 its iconic forest birds, significant, too, to Indigenous Hawaiian culture \u2014 the main force of extinction is malaria, a mosquito-borne disease. Mosquitoes, a nonnative pest, were introduced accidentally in the early 1800s by a whaling ship<\/a>. The blood-suckers proliferated across the islands and later began spreading avian malaria, a blood-borne pathogen they transmit through their bites. <\/p>\n