Killing Insects for Conservation

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2018

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Prof Adam Hart stirred a hornet’s nest of controversy by asking the public to kill wasps for science. He explores why scientists kill insects to save them from extinction. The work of the entomologist often involves the killing of insects in large numbers. This happens in the search for new species in the exploration of the planet’s biodiversity and in ecological research to monitor the health of wild insect populations and the impact that we are having on the environment. But the methods of insects scientists have come under criticism. Last year presenter and entomologist Adam Hart was involved in a citizen science project aimed at surveying the abundance of various species of British wasp around the country. The survey entailed members of the public setting up lethal wasp traps in their gardens and sending the dead insects to the lab running the survey. Many people took part but the study also generated negative newspaper coverage and stinging criticism on social media. How can you save insects by killing them? Next week, do insects experience pain and suffering? Picture: Broad-Bellied Chaser, Credit: BBC Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, Marnie Chesterton from Crowds
0:02.4	here, just gate-crashing the podcast you actually downloaded
0:05.9	to mention mine.
0:07.3	If you're the type of person who's ever wondered
0:09.7	anything about the world around you,
0:11.5	then we are the podcast for you.
0:14.0	We take your questions on anything scientific and scour the globe for answers.
0:18.0	That's crowd science which you can find wherever you get your podcasts.
0:22.0	I'll get out of your ears now as you were.
0:25.0	You're listening to Discovery. Science in depth from the BBC World Service.
0:30.0	I'm Adam Hart and I'm an entomologist. I insects in this half hour I'm going to lift a lid on one of the more
0:36.7	controversial aspects of my field of research the very large numbers of insects that we
0:41.6	kill in the name of science.
0:45.4	So in here I've got a jar, this is called a killing jar, it's got it labeled killing jar.
0:49.4	At the bottom of it I've got plaster of Paris.
0:52.4	That's because it absorbs the liquid that I put in there while it turns into a gas.
0:58.0	This is our killing fluid here. I only need a tiny drop of this in there and this is sealed it's airtight.
1:04.0	It's quite small the killing jar because obviously I want to kill these
1:08.3	insects as quick as possible. It's not something that I take any pleasure in and I want it done as ethically correctly and quickly as I possibly can.
1:18.0	They will actually be dead within within seconds.
1:22.0	Entomologist Sally Ann Spence uses a traditional killing jar to kill the dung beetle she collects for her studies.
1:30.0	Other insect scientists pop their subjects into the deep freeze,
	...

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