Nontoxic Insect Control and Why it’s important
© Mark McWiggins 2024
My wife and I live in Centralia WA in an old house where there are lots of flies in warm months. There are also earwigs and a few mosquitos, although it’s typically very dry here in the summer that keeps the mosquitos down except where there is standing water.
Why it’s important not to use insect sprays like Raid … I remember the commercials from when I was a child in Louisiana: Kills Bugs Dead!
But since we are all biological organisms, it’s important not to put more poison into the environment.
For example, bats eat mosquitos, beetles and moths, help pollinate crops, disperse seeds, recycle nutrients and add to biodiversity support.
They also have cultural and economic significance because of bat-watching activities in Austin, TX and Southeast Asia
Studies estimate that bats save U.S. agriculture over $3 billion annually by controlling pests alone
So how to screen annoying insects away from the populace? There are two commercial versions of this nontoxic mosquito control: Moquito Dunks and Mosquito Bits, both based on the Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti). I read about this a couple of years ago in Bloomberg Businessweek and was thrilled to have visited a local farm where the proprietress was using one of these to control her mosquitos in a water tank.
As far as the flies and earwigs and few mosquitos, I prefer the Executioner electric flyswatter although my wife uses a dish towel, which works well too.
May you live a (mostly) insect-free life and a long and happy one.
