A Way Out of Bugging Out

As a species, we’ve certainly done our share of damage to the animal kingdom, particularly in the extinction department. Dodo bird? That was us. Passenger pigeon? Yep. How about the mammoth (if we don’t count hockey teams)? Scientists pin that one on early humans.

That is not including the ones we’ve pushed to the edge of extinction like condors, whales, and that kind of buffalo that has wings (supposedly the wild kind of wings?).

Pushing animals into extinction is not something to be particularly proud of, but I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer about it. Instead, I am hoping to redirect a troubling talent to make it a successful skill.

Why has this come up, you ask? Well, it’s quite simple. Now that I have migrated to my summer abode to work at a camp in the wooded mountains of New Hampshire, I have been mercilessly devoured—not by bears, or moose, not even upset Bostonians who were hoping to get farther in the NHL/NBA playoffs—but by flies, mosquitoes, and other biting insects filled with the blood lust. Whoever said that the only animals to not harbor a fear of humans are polar bears, crocodiles, and tigers, clearly has never been outside during a wet spring, because biting bugs absolutely need to be added to that list.

Right now, my leg has enough bite scars on it that it would not require too much creativity to connect-the-dots with a Sharpie and fill out a decently accurate portrait of the Mona Lisa—whose smile probably would have displayed a full on grin if it weren’t for the spider crawling around just off frame.

Even the names of these insects carry bad connotations: the tick sounds like being ticked off. Hornets sound pointy and scary. Yellow jackets are reminiscent of those grumpy crossing guards at Elementary Schools.

The other weird thing about biting insect names is when they are named after the animals that they most frequently harass. There is a whole category in the fly department that identifies solely on what it hunts: deer flies, horse flies, moose flies, dragon flies. If my experience is any indication, all of them could be renamed Marty flies.

Not convinced that we should take our extinction level skills and use them to target biting insects as a personal vendetta of an aggrieved Marty? How about the fact that more human deaths have been caused by mosquitoes carrying malaria, yellow fever, or peanut allergies (that comes from mosquitoes, right?) than all of the other predator deaths combined in human existence*.

*Probably. You can’t expect me to actually check, this is the Internet after all.

To blatantly call for the extinction of entire species of annoying insects might cause some to hesitate. Perhaps because you worry about affecting the fragile, interconnected ecological network they are a part of? Or that the bug spray companies will block any such efforts with the Big Bug Lobby. Or that we might accidentally kill off such essential superheroes as Spider-man, Antman, the Wasp, the Tick, or other future money-grabbing efforts from Marvel?

The reasons for not pursuing such an end-all effort could be legion and maybe even reasonable, but hear me out: no more bug bites. Debate over.

How do we accomplish such wholescale extinction? Well, we can always dip back into our previously successful forays of species endangerment. For instance, instead of beaver hats or dalmation puppy fur coats we could make wasp hats or tick corpse coats. Or we could make a bunch of transcontinental railroads go through mosquito communities, since that did a number on the American bison. Or, while we’re talking about how we killed bison in mass, we could drive hordes of horse flies over a cliff like the native americans would do with early herds of bison. Granted, we would first have to capture the horse flies and remove their wings and then release them in order for this to be effective … but we can sort out those details later.

The powers of human destruction have been proven before—let us kill … but only in the most positive way possible!

Marty Reeder is a young adult author and high school English teacher. To add to the list of biting insects or annoying miniature dogs that yip too much should receive our newest focus, please send requests to writingreeder@gmail.com.