中国：パキスタンに英雄的アヒルを送り出したい

　サバクトビバッタさんたちへの対策で、10万羽のアヒルを送り出せるけど、どうかなあ…というアイディア。

BBC China may send ducks to battle Pakistan's locust swarms 27 Feb 2020

「China could deploy 100,000 ducks to neighbouring Pakistan to help tackle swarms of crop-eating locusts, according to reports.

Pakistan declared an emergency earlier this month saying locust numbers were the worst in more than two decades.

An agricultural expert behind the scheme says a single duck can eat more than 200 locusts a day and can be more effective than pesticides.」

　なにしろアヒルは一羽で一日200匹のバッタを食べることが出来るのだそうだ、あるいはそれ以上。10万羽いれば一日あたり2000万匹のバッタを処理できる。うん、計算上はかなりいけそうだ。生物農薬の極意であるぞ！

「Lu Lizhi, a senior researcher with the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told Bloomberg that the ducks are "biological weapons". He said that while chickens could eat about 70 locusts in one day a duck could devour more than three times that number.」

「"Go, ducks! I hope you come back alive," wrote one user of China's Twitter-like Weibo platform.」

　でもアヒルって水場が大好きだし、アフガニスタンだとかなり活躍できる場所が限定されちゃうんじゃない？というのも尤も。このくらい高度な生物「農薬」だと、食べ物の好みも課題になりがちではあり…。

「"Ducks rely on water, but in Pakistan's desert areas, the temperature is very high," Zhang Long told reporters in Pakistan.」

　とりあえずはやっぱり、実験段階なのじゃなかろうか。