Specicide

Are there species that we should deliberately drive to extinction? Before you say no, try reading Olivia Judson's controversial article in the New York Times entitled 'A bug's Death: Should we send the malaria mosquito the way of the dodo?' . In this article she advocates the extinction, or "specicide", of thirty mosquito species through the introduction of recessive knockout genes".

Would this be the first step on a very slippery slope (a lot of people hate snakes, many people dislike spiders etc. etc.) or would the ends justify the means - eliminating the mosquitoes that vector malaria would save at least one million human lives every year?

Also, check out this earlier Kakapo post about one more part of the mystery that is the Kakapo.