Why Planes Drop Millions of Flies on Panama Every Day
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
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Every day, airplanes fly over the Panama-Colombia border and drop millions of flies from the sky. It's part of an intense effort to control a deadly pest called screwworms, and believe it or not, it works.
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eyyey😅😊s 😊😅e 😅😅
Please do a video on gene drives
Imagine explaining this job to someone: ‘Yeah, I drop flies out of planes for a living.
-Where?
-In Panama 😂
Imagine explaining this to the current adminstration.
"... I drop *castrated* flies out of planes ..."
I tried explain the programme to somebody and it still sounded weird
@@westrim😂😂😂😂
"New World Screwworm flesh-eating larvae" is the most frightening thing I've ever heard. Thanks.
Brain eating amoebae
I live in Brazil and I can tell you, learning a little wound you saw on a dog ended up being a cavity filled with worms is traumatic. First time I saw that I was a child and I’m phobic of worms ever since.
@@rodrigorosatoalves i have a question,
Did spaghetti scare you as a child also?
@@Redsauceconsumer
lol no. I’m not •very• phobic, though. I just can’t stand the sight of larvae. They make me feel sick and want them away from me quickly.
@@rodrigorosatoalves 👍
3:17 that logo with the fly in the atom is awesome
Thank you for pointing that out, I would have missed it completely.
This is copeg, is a coalition with Panama and the US to deal with the screworm, there was an outbreak two years ago and we are still in the aftermath but is clean up, my stepfather works in copeg
This program is a perennial target for know-it-all congress critters looking for programs to mock. It needs to keep going and for people to understand it.
what
@@taffypulller Idiot politicians like to say "the government is wasting money dropping a bunch of flies from planes in other countries" without any further context and try to cut funding for these sorts of things.
The person above you is stating their displease at these politicians and making note of the need to continue to educate people so that screwworms don't become uncontrolled again in central and north america (or other complications).
wait till elon starts mocking it as a waste of money
@@ronblack7870The 1000 IQ play would be to destroy it and have Space X pick up the contract to release proprietary Gamma Fly X to do the exact same thing, but more efficiently in the US, and then charge more money to do it.
This idea was proposed for mosquitos too to get rid of malaria but got pushback cuz of other environmental impacts on getting rid of mosquitos. It was especially useful for mosquitos cuz male mosquitos don’t suck blood or transmit disease
There is another approach that tries to alter the malaria mosquitoes so they become unable to transmit malaria. It's more complicated
I think Disney paid for the CRISPR treatment for mosquitos on part of their land. It wasn't long ago, so it may take a couple of years.
I heard a story about getting rid of mosquitos meaning birds leave, and without the birds, tic population explodes
If there is a lab that breads non-infected mosquitoes, couldn’t they just repopulate them after irradiating the disease?
Moskito are one of the base pillars of the whole food chain, getting rid of them would be devastating for the environment
Thanks!
Probably stopped today with the rest of the US's international programs.........
Its a USDA program.
@brilobox2 do you know who was nominated for secretary of USDA? Brooke Rollins, a former white house aide. Her message: to modernize the USDA - whatever that means.
I'm sad to say, that was my first thought as well. If something like NOAA isn't allowed to communicate internationally, what's going on with programs like this??
This program will continue to operate without any disruption due to it being classified as critical since its inception. No critical programs are being cut.
Why not?
Thank you for the sponsor spot warning, was a very nice touch. Hope you all have a good one.
I am from Panama, and actually, a friend of my dad used to work on that initiative. As a matter of fact, there is a sort of monument dedicated to it near my hometown, it is the Fly Atom logo made out of white rocks on a mountain, and you can see it from a distance while driving.
I got recommended this fast
Same
5:00 The Darian Gap .. for some reason always reminds me of the song "Echo beach, far away inside" ...
The video leaves out an important detail: Panama _had,_ until 2024, been free of the screwworm for 30 years.
_The Economist_ says (“The flesh-eating worms devouring cows,” 24 October 2024):
_Central America is suffering its worst outbreak of_ Cochliomyia hominivorax _in decades. In a normal year Panama records fewer than a hundred cases of the parasite. So far in 2024 there have been over 19,700. Infections have spread north to Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. The Darién Gap, a 100km (60-mile) stretch of rainforest which separates Panama from South America, where the screwworm is endemic, used to serve as a barrier to the spread of the fly. But deforestation and migration have degraded the forest, making it more permeable to the screwworm and helping the parasite to make a comeback._
5:59
Well, I guess it's only a matter of time before they return to the U.S. Then the price of beef, pork lamb, and dairy milk will skyrocket. I'm sure this will be helped along when DOGE terminates the fly drop program.
@@fr2ncm9 “…when DOGE terminates the fly drop program.”
That occurred to me, too-in fact, I was looking for which agency runs the program when I saw the _Economist_ article. It’s not USAID, at least, which has been cut, but the US Department of Agriculture, which might not be in DOGE’s sights, at least not yet (but who knows?).
I seriously doubt that absolutely NO ONE is worried about how removing an insect from an ecosystem might negatively impact it 🤔🤨
🙋🏽♀️
Animals are not picky when it comes to their diet. Removing a very generic species that's in a family full of many other lookalikes would unlikely impact an ecosystem.
I love the idea that at some point, a dissatisfied pilot was getting drunk in a bar in Panama after dropping sterile flies frim his plane for the four hundreth time in the trimester and said as a joke: "You know what would be neat ? Them flies passing sterility to their offspring !" While everyone was laughing their heads off, a very litteral and stubborn scientist, probably drunk too, said to himself : "Yeah, let's... let's do that !", went back to his lab and, after decades of research, ACTUALLY FOUND A WAY to do it...
I'm speechless 😮
Curaçao mentioned!! 🇨🇼🇨🇼🇨🇼🇨🇼🇨🇼
I'd call myself more of a geography buff (I can get all 200-something countries on the sporcle-quiz, with maybe 10-15 mistaken guesses and I'm not to bad at GeoGuessr) than the average person ... but I am ashamed to admit that the only time I had heard Curacao before was in "Blue Curacao" - as in the liquor you use to make cocktails blue :D Oh the shame!
I suddenly have the inexplicable desire for a cocktail.
Such an absolutely bonkers solution.. but hey, it works! haha
learning new stuff about my country damn
My father had a small fleet of planes that did this in the 1980s.
Odds that this program survives the next two weeks: Low!
True lol
makes you think you should have to work on a farm with screw worm infestations for 2 years before being allowed to make regulatory changes in government.
Confirmed that this is part of the aid freeze - "Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise, Hon. Jose Mai reported last week that the sterilization plant for NWS flies in Panama is owned by the Americans, and that a note has been received that spending should be halted until around mid-February. "
😂
Thank you for the video! I enjoyed watching it during my lunch. 😅 I know this might sound strange, but what are the ethical and environmental effects of extinguishing this species? It would also be worth mentioning that removing a species from its niche creates a gap that can be filled by another organism.
Not strange at all. I, too, am seriously questioning the ethics and morals of this. Same as I did on the video about the mosquitoes
I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine what will happen when the current US Federal administration cuts funding for this program. ("We're spending millions of dollars to raise millions of flies and drop them on Panama from airplanes!? You're kidding! What a waste of money.")
richard
--
I'm pretty sure it's already cut
I'm sure Famine and Pestilence want it cut.
You have no idea how much this saves the U.S. in cost at the grocery store.
I'll go ahead and quote the USDA: "The U.S. livestock industry benefits by more than $900 million a year as a result of the eradication of the screwworm."
@@smallhatbigdog4985 You're assuming the people in charge can read.
They also did this in jamaica back in the 80s
I doubt the new usa government will see value from continuing things like this anymore…
That is an ignorant thing to say.
@@nickh.isalldamgenocntrol4444 Yes, the incoming US government is quite full of ignorant people.
@@nickh.isalldamgenocntrol4444 the ignorant thing is the clowns cutting funding for important efforts like these
@ why
The people running the country now are ignorant. Sounds about right to me.
Actively trying to create a Hulk fly
I think i speak for everyone when i say, screw worms
I'm sure there is a website somewhere for that 🤮.
Don't worry, I'm sure Elon wont cut the program.
He's efficient, did it yesterday.
Make Panama part of usa.. then we will pay. Otherwise they can do it on their own
Its a waste of money... *checks notes*... Preventing disease and disaster of a major industry (and economic hardship of central americans which would increase pressure to emigrate to USA).
Let's just put a tariff on the screw worms instead.
Too late
@@machematixwont be much pressure if you close the border down. Sounds to me like you are implying theyll claim asylum despite economoc hardship not being a valid aslyum claim
Is there a predator of the flies that would suffer if the population drops?
There you go again using your brain and thinking about potential consequences. /s
Undoubtedly. It's a question of balancing that harm against the use of pesticides that might harm livestock, humans, and the environment. The problem is that, at the moment, the programs that study those impacts are being dismantled without any oversight or scientific advice.
@SayAhhis that a bad thing?
@Quinnnard Ever seen what happens when keystone species get removed from an ecosystem?
None has been discovered; the flies are otherwise quite generic insects, most insect predators have a wide diet and the flies aren't by numbers very numerous. Their elimination from the US and Mexico hasn't resulted in changes to any populations the literature is aware of. Of more concern is the general decrease in insects caused by car windshields. (Seriously.)
I wonder if this project will still continue without the US now.
I'm a little confused but I may just have missed something.
At 6:06 the graphic shows the red flies (presumably the ones made sterile) still having off-spring ... isn't that the whole point? Them not being able to do that anymore?
The graphic at 6:06 is showing a different technology, a gene drive. The red flies carry a gene that gets passed on to all their offspring (usually, a gene gets passed on to only 50% of offspring). That gene is "driven" through the population hence the term gene drive. The type of gene drive shown in the graphic is what's called a "modification" gene drive where the red gene spreads through the population and modifies it somehow without killing or sterilizing individuals. (For pest control, you could use this type of gene drive to modify mosquitoes so they can't pass on malaria, for instance.) But the narrator was talking about something else, a population suppression drive, where the gene sterilizes females (but males are still fertile). That just isn't really represented by the graphic.
@@smallhatbigdog4985 Thank you, I was also confused about this!
Fascinating
I had no idea that eradication by sterilization was this old of a technique.
If the screwworm is still a problem after decades, that means that the fly drop is not working
The fly drop is working to keep active populations in South America from spreading northward again.
We either didnt have the money or the politcal agreements to drop sterile flies through the South American spaces, so the flies aren't erradicated there. One would think we could sell those countries the tech and they'd do it themselves, but maybe they don't see screwworm as worth the investment, or maybe the terrain causes complications. I don't have the expertise to say, I'm just spitballing reasons.
yes
confirmed, it was cut
wooooooooooooooooo Panama mentioned 🎂🎉🤪🇵🇦
i think weaving spider is one of the natural solution.. also the jumping spider because it can catch the flies..
Will this program survive Elon's "break everything, grab all the money, to hell with who's affected" spree long enough to achieve its final projected goal?
No bet.
Why you hating. So far I seen the things they been wasting money on and is terrible
@@lvluptoaverage52 - Because that's just plain false. The programs Musk has illegally attacked have been entirely beneficial. USAID is a humanitarian organization. The IRS's free file allows people with relatively simple tax returns to file their taxes for free.
Near as I can tell, Musk has attacked them not because doing so will save money, but because they improve people's lives. Musk's tweets on the subject only make sense if you're deranged enough to believe helping people is a "criminal" activity.
@@lvluptoaverage52I personally would not like to ingest flesh eating maggots because the president and his oligarch friend issued a sweeping freeze on foreign aid including on places we import our meat from. But I suppose some people do like eating the bugs so I'm not judging
Sure buddy
Freak out about an email server or a laptop, but have a bunch of zoomer zealots with compromised security history raid your nations most vital systems?
No biggie :3
@@lvluptoaverage52 Then why are you even here? And why, then, also boost them in 'the algorithm' by commenting?
It's a brilliant idea... think it's also being done for mosquitoes
Science is Golden.
Sterilized "screw"worms? Sounds like fertile ground for jokes. Pun intended!
The screwfly solution, masters of horror
You don't have to look up in the sky to wonder about Aliens conceived by Ridley Scott and James Cameron. They're right down here, on the warm earth, waiting to hatch in your cuddly wounds to taste rotting flesh
And we are all very grateful for maggot therapy, a great wound cleanser. But those worms that don't wait for your flesh to rot...
Hey! Millions of flies can't be wrong! Go to Panama!!!
We need those gene drives for mosquitoes. That would be amazing.
I'm pretty positive we already do or have done the radiation thing for mosquitoes and the results are God damn amazing.
Quote I found after a quick search.
"GM mosquitoes have been used to reduce the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Brazil, Panama, India, and the Cayman Islands. In one study, GM mosquitoes reduced the local population of Aedes aegypti by up to 96% over 11 months"
It's only a matter of time for us to have a flulk incident.
Is this program suspended at the moment?
Do you worry that it would be? 🤔
Which species of screwworm fly specifically?
We don’t like them isn’t a valid reason to not look into the negative effects.
I feel the same
The video was being somewhat facetious, people HAVE looked into possible effects and these have been found to likely be very minimal. Screw worms aren't a major cause of fatality for any known species, nor a significant part of any species' diet. This differs from mosquitoes, whose various species if removed could have severe impacts.
@@garethdean6382 A lot of little critters in the water feed on the mosquito larvae. If you'd remove that you'd probably disturb the whole chain up. I'm curious about the fly but I'm guessing the only research that was put in was mostly to get rid of it rather than what part if fills in the environment where it lives.
If scientists were to use the CRIPSR method, would that eventually cause all the screwworms to go extinct in Central and North America? And would those flies spread to other areas, like south of Panama into South America?
The current method of releasing sterilized adults have already eradicated screwflies in USA, Mexico and Panama. This was stated and implied multiple times in the video. The current release areas cover the boarder of Panama and Columbia boarder 4:56 .
He also said the current infestation of flies are in South america and Africa. That is where they are considering implementing the CRISPR gene drive 5:53 .
Please do a video on gene drives
As a programmer,there's nothing more permament than a temporary solution
So this is where flies come from
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama
This is one of those things that has been gone so long we no longer know about it. The flys could get all the north to Nebraska some years. Costing millions in beef, chicken, pork, sheep. Also people can get them! Thank USDA.
Gene drives definitely sounds like it could have dark implications 😅
Children of Men takes place in 2027.
Operation Warp Speed happened too
Yikes!!!! we don't have these in Australia.
Give me a nice spider or a snake thanks.
ikr, timid dangerous critters are way better than that nightmare fuel.
nobody's died in Aus from spider bites in over 40 years.
I wonder if this was associated with USAID. It’s a very important venture..
It mostly falls under the US agriculture department rather than USAID..I believe.
Screw that worm!
All science needs funding
A man, a plan, Panama!
2:16 So, Hulk flies?
When AI hears about this its going to think we are monsters.
bro the NEW WORLD WHAT
Yep, a living screw feasting from within!
Same program is used over apple tree growing areas to control coddling moth. Sterile insect release vehicular frequently seen in my area.
My partner is losing it over “screwworms”
I use this same method for dropping UA-cam videos on my channel
damn, i was eating my lunch, give a warning next time
Eating meat like those flies? ; )
Flies in the title want warning enough?
50 years from now - xtra xtra read all about it. Flies the size of eagles invaded town and ate everyone. 😮
Sci show when will we cure blindness caused by retinal vein occlusion?
if you increase the population of jumping spiders it can help to lessen this screw flies..
I've never been here this early
Soon they won't be flies, they'll be bombs. If we can't have that canal, nobody can.
I guess this will stop.
Yay!
"The screw worms just kept reproducing", yeah that checks out.
imma put this on hold till i wake up tomorow im not continuing after hearing fkesh esting larve befor bed
it's super gross, nightmare stuff.
long story short, they use sterile ones since they mate once.
they put them on panama to stop it spreading from other countries.
they are testing using CRISPR for a cheaper solution.
worst case scenario from their extinction is acceptable and negligible (even more than mosquitos).
Shouldn't Gamma Radiation have created Hulk Flies?
Holds breath, waiting for the new plan: "BUILD A WALL!"
And make the flies pay it!
A man
A plan
A canal
Panama!
Hmm that reminds me of genetic modification in the 1997 movie the Mimic 😮🤪
Can you explain how chickens get bird flu and are eggs effected? If the chickens have the flu do they die from this flu?
Maybe it's because I have played a lot of mass effect, but gene drives sound a lot like the genophage is 🤣
@6:00 gene drive is neat, but I can't help but think "America could with 1960s tech, surely drones could do this cheap enough for South American nations". Brazil alone has a multi-billion dollar beef industry. Back-of-envelope math, South america is 18,000,000km^2, let's cover a 1km x 1km grid, so with reapers at 400km/hr, we'd need 42500 hours. Google says they cost $3500/hr to operate, so that's 150 million USD. Ramp the nuked fly farm up to 12,000kg of flies a day, and fill a dozen reapers each morning and send them away, they could each drop flies for 10 hours, then fly back. Just do a creeping barrage pushing the border further and further south until they're extinct.
If flies are dropped on something, shouldn’t they be called “lands”?
The worms were screwed.
So basically the genophage?
Nonetheless, this species is a part of natural wildlife and occupies its own niche and plays a specific role in the ecosystem. The consequences (in ecological terms) of removing this species from the wild cannot be accurately assessed. It is concerning whether humans can truly eliminate this species, even if it is considered a pest to humans. While they may be considered pests by humans, such distinctions do not exist in the wild.
"a man a plan a canal panama"
Screw worms!
Wonder if this has also been eliminated this week?
USAID cancellation put a stop to this practice.
Na, they're only getting rid of useless stuff
@@theplatypen1959 It's completely shut down now.
So are there no consequences on the natural ecosystem to extincting the species? Not that I'm a fan of them but I wonder how their complete elimination sits with wild life conservation theories and efforts.
Please no one tell Elon about this
So its basically a Bot fly? 😵
So… you’re saying the screw worms got screwed by screwing?
screwed by lack of screwing. monoscrewers
I wonder if this screwworm program is one of those getting it's funding cut. It's helping other countries, after all (never mind it's way cheaper than the alternatives).
This was already covered by another video
Humans? Aw hell na
Screw worm gunna screw
Screw it!❤