Annhiliation of Cockroaches

[Sela]

So recently I saw a cockroach during the day in my home. That sort of prompted me to read up on them . . . a lot. Very interesting creatures these cockroaches, and also seemingly very useless. They don't keep predator/prey species in check as they're mostly detritivores(sp?), they spread disease, and though they provide a food source for many species of insect, those species by and large have several other readily available food sources as well. Intelligence-wise they're capable of living pain-free without a head (near as I understand) for quite a long time, dying only due to starvation should their head be cut off. And of course, in the case of a nuclear war they're one of the insects that's so hardy that they're likely to survive. While there are more and less painful ways to kill cockroaches or eliminate them from a home mostly solutions revolve around denying access and using cockroach-tailored "domino-effect" type pesticides. Something which keeps the roach alive for 2-3 days while it spreads the lethal chemical wherever it goes.

I say all this so that people WON'T flood this thread with all the ways to eliminate cockroaches from your house, with protestations that I'm some sort of weird bug-killer, or random tidbits that are off-topic.

So here's the idea: Say that the United States decides that they are going to embark on a quest to annihilate *all* roaches on the planet earth. Whatever method used must be as cost-effective as possible, the operation should be completed in a year or less, and must not cause undue damage to the ecosystem or massive collateral damage of other species (a few hundred thousand insects here and there dying alongside isn't a big deal). While the US government has managed to secure 100% complete and total international cooperation, nobody else in the world is gonna lift a finger to help. They'll give you access to their countries, to their airspace, and even the right to schedule house-by-house visits as needed.

Also assume for this scenario that war stops entirely and that there is no need to maintain national defense; that is to say you have the entire standing army and national defense budget to use as you see fit. Also assume nobody is opposing your efforts by harboring/breeding cockroaches intentionally . . . only the roaches are working against you.

What methods would you use? Could it be done at all? And as an aside, is specicide justifiable as removing a pest-species that serves only a minimal purpose?



EDIT: SHOOT, wrong forum - someone please punt this to Science, Logic and Morality . . . not Science Fiction .

[Sea Skimmer]

What methods would you use? Could it be done at all? And as an aside, is specicide justifiable as removing a pest-species that serves only a minimal purpose?

You seem to think cockroaches are one species. They very much are are not. They number thousands of species, of which only a few are ever annoying to humans. Trying to wipe them out would fail, and be very actively destructive to the ecosystem while generally making no fucking sense at all.

[Serafina]

If you really want to do it (ignoring commons sense, of course - then again, we are talking about the USA ), biological warfare would be your best bet.
IF you can create a disease that specifically targets cockroaches, spreads quickly between them and either kills or (better yet) sterilizes them, you win.

However, we have failed to do so for other species - notably mosquitos, where eleminating certain species would eliminate malaria and therefore be highly beneficial, while the biological niche could be filled with other species of Culicidae.

[Swindle1984]

I think we mostly failed to annihilate the mosquito because the methods we were using got banned for fucking up other species. For instance, DDT, one of the most effective pesticides ever invented.

As for annihilating cockroaches (which I hate with a passion; just the sight of one fills me with disgust and loathing.), the best way would be to tailor a disease or parasite that will kill them off while not harming other species. Combine that with pesticide treatments of all buildings and the sewers/storm tunnels, and it's unlikely you could kill off all roaches in the US, but you'd put a significant dent in their population. Even with their rate of reproduction, it'd probably take twenty or thirty years for them to recover, especially if you kept up constant treatments all over the country and regularly sprayed pesticides along the border and in ports to keep them from entering the country from abroad.

Texas has been trying to exterminate fire ants for decades, with little success. We think we finally have a chance, introducing a fly that preys on them in their native land, but we're still testing to see if the fly is going to cause similar or worse problems if we let them loose in the US.

[Starglider]

Awww, but cockroaches are cute! I confess, I was cheering for the anthro-roaches in the Mimic films.

[Sela]

@Sea Skimmer: I'd stupidly gotten it in my head that there were 5 species . . . but yeah, dumb reading on my part. There are 5 *common* species in America, which is absolutely not the same thing.

@Serafina: Seriously? I had no *idea* this thing had been attempted before (albeit on mosquitos). To be totally honest the mere thought of somehow taking out an entire species with minimal collateral damage is so daunting a task that it beggars my imagination (which is why i was happy I'd imagined it!). That we "succeeded" in eradicating cases of polio also impresses me to no end.

@Swindle: I was thinking that it'd have to be something along those lines. The way I figure it there's the agent itself and then dispersal.

Here's a totally bizzare idea (and one that could conceivably work as the basis of a story about human invention gone wrong). Could we genetically engineer an "anti-roach"? An organism that acts and lives like a cockroach but loses its ability to reproduce in, say, 300 generations and excretes a substance that is lethal to roaches? As it is nymph roaches very commonly eat roach-feces to pick up nutrients. These anti-roaches would travel amongst roaches and leave similar but toxic material and effectively wipe out the population.

Wow, that actually really *does* sound like bad sci-fi. Let's just say tldr

[Srelex]

Here's a totally bizzare idea (and one that could conceivably work as the basis of a story about human invention gone wrong). Could we genetically engineer an "anti-roach"? An organism that acts and lives like a cockroach but loses its ability to reproduce in, say, 300 generations and excretes a substance that is lethal to roaches? As it is nymph roaches very commonly eat roach-feces to pick up nutrients. These anti-roaches would travel amongst roaches and leave similar but toxic material and effectively wipe out the population.

Wow, that actually really *does* sound like bad sci-fi. Let's just say tldr

I think that's more or less the plot of the aforementioned Mimic film.

[The Yosemite Bear]

besides us crime buffs would hate to see a world without necrophilia americanus