Happy Bats vs Pyrethrin Fog
Okay, I understand that West Nile Virus is nothing you want to mess around with, however I am wary of the present strategy of fogging our neighborhoods with pyrethrin. Just because it comes from a pretty flower (the chrysanthemum) doesn't do it for me. Smell the flowers, sure, but breath them in? Biking in a t-shirt and shorts through a flower extract fog? In September, Karen Laslo in a letter to the Chico Beat cited reports that New Yorkers were already reporting health effects related to the spray.
I personally have long memories of the malathion spraying in the Bay Area in the 1980s, and we are still tallying up the health and environmental consequences. So you can understand why I am skeptical about pyrethrin.
I would like to inform the Butte County Mosquito and Vector Control District that I have my own natural mosquito abatement system in place, and they need not do any more fogging in front of my house.
My property is home to a small population of Mexican free-tailed bats. This is the same species of bat that provides mosquito abatement service for the city of Houston, where a 250,000-strong colony of bats consume an estimated 2.5 tons of insects every night. For free.
One study found that bats provided $1.7 million in insect pest suppression for cotton growers over an 8-county area of Texas; another study found that urban-based bat colonies added about $8 million to the economy of the city of Austin through tourism and other direct and indirect benefits.
No doubt Chico has its own unsung colonies of bats hanging out beneath the bridges over Lindo Channel and elsewhere.
The bat population on my property isn't quite as extensive (perhaps a couple dozen), but it does the trick. As a bonus feature, they provide me with an all-natural fertilizer--100% natural processed high nutrient content bugs--which I collect and add to my compost pile every few weeks.
Above: Bat box is placed high on the side of the house, protected from squirrels. Below: Happy bats (though not totally pleased with the flash of my camera).
Comments
This is a fascinating story (OK, for science nerds). I wonder why, with our huge mosquito population, why we don't have more bats in the area feeding off the darned things?
Maybe this could be the start of a cool new project, getting rice farmers to put up bat boxes so these flying friends would have homes from which to conduct their warfare on the insects? It sounds relatively cheap, perhaps some local groups (like Karen Laslo's for instance) would put up the cash?
I can't see why anyone would be opposed, sounds like a win-win?
Posted by: Dane Langston | December 10, 2007 02:23 PM
Thanks for that info. But you are wrong.
I'll welcome the spray as needed and you quit your whining. If you don't like being around spraying leave town for the day. Others might LIKE the idea of keeping the mosquitoes down this way.
Bats are fine, spraying is fine too. I'm happy you have bats. I don't want bats and I'm fine with spraying. To each his/her own but stop trying to push your agenda on everybody else because you want the world to be your way.
Pyrethrin is a natural organic compound that is safe and it biodegrades quickly. Yet there are still these nutty fears about it from the un-informed flower children that now think flower extract is bad for them.
Jeez, moonbats.
Posted by: leonard | December 10, 2007 07:36 PM
Push my agenda? Quit my whining? Nutty fears?
Wow.
I did, however, write that I was wary of pyrethrin.
The dictionary defines wary as "cautious and watchful."
As such, I believe that it is my responsibility to be (at the very least) wary of a substance that is being sprayed into the air that I breathe that has the expressed purpose of killing something.
What should a "cautious and watchful" person do? I recommend they get more information. Here is a link to the fact sheet supplied by the National Pesticide Information Center (Oregon State University/U.S. EPA). Feel free to read it and come to your own conclusions about pyrethrin, or do a Google search and read some of the online literature (there is a lot out there).
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/pyrethrins.pdf
Posted by: jeremy miller | December 11, 2007 10:40 PM
I've heard of the mosquito abatement people giving out mosquito fish. I'm also wondering, what about dragonflies? Aren't they natural mosquito eaters as well?
Posted by: Dane Langston | December 12, 2007 02:17 PM
Mosquito fish are good for folks that have permanent standing water, though I have not seen many mosquitoes where goldfish are involved either.
Dragonflies are indeed voracious predators, and eat mosquitoes both as water-bound nymphs (which eat mosquito larvae) and as adults.
Posted by: jeremy miller | December 13, 2007 03:08 PM