I used to be "in the biz", as they say...a former pesticide applicator, with a commercial license. some musings:
bats don't affect the mosquito population much. those oft quoted numbers like "600 mosquitos per hour"...yeah, they can...but they generally don't. the numbers are a mathmatical derivation...how much food/energy they burn in an hour. x amount of protein/carbs/calories=600 skeeters. no one has ever extracted 600 mosquitos from a bat's belly. (and yeah, they DO look.).
they do tend to dart after anything that pops up on their radar...which is probably why you can catch one with a fly rod. I can stand out here in my back yard and toss small rocks into the air, and they'll dive after those, too.
buz zappers don't attract female mosquitos, which are the ones that bite. they DO attract and kill alot of bugs..many of which are predators of mosquitos.
CO2/heat generating traps...kind of the same leap of logic on those as with the bats. oh, yeah, they sure do catch lots of mosquitos. they can prove that...what they haven't been able to prove clearly is whether or not you actually get bit less with one of these running. The jury is still out on that. Its a tough study to design and implement. The thing is, there are "millions and millions and millions" of these critters out there...even if you get 90% control, which is considered excellent in any type of pest control...there's still plenty left in that 10% to make your life miserable.
The organophosphate links: great propaganda. everything in there is true, just about. What they leave out is that the toxicities that they quote are for the pure product; not the packaged or applied rates, which are heavily diluted. Nothing you can get your hands on is classified by the EPA as anything but "practically non-toxic". The actual LD50's are WAY higher (meaning, less toxic) than those articles quote.
DEET is actually more toxic than most insecticides in this family. Look at the label on that can of "OFF": its says *warning* which is a government mandated signal word, indicating a specific level of toxicity. Most organophosphates, in application rates, would have the epa signal word "caution", indicating a lower toxicity. The funny thing is that DEET is supposed to be rubbed all over your bare skin!
(also dangerous to put it on small children). Its far more toxic to us...yet, it doesn't actually kill the bugs; it just annoys them.
(its the feeling of it that they don't like; they have to actually touch you before they're "repelled". they land on you and go "yuck!", and fly away). the stuff that does kill them, is less toxic to us. go figure.
Anyway, the reality is, you don't have to be afraid of anything you can buy in the store, by and large. yes, it can kill you...but you'd have to fall into a vat of the stuff at the chemical plant for that to happen.
most organophosphates are going away soon, anyway...dursban and diazinon are already gone. not because of any legitimate danger, but for other business and political reasons, the manufacturers are just dropping them. New epa certification rules...money, etc. long story.
The fan:
works, because mosquitos are so small and light, they don't fly well in any kind of breeze.
same breeze disperses your CO2 emissions, and distrupts your heat signature, so they can't find you as easily.
They look nice, and the idea is neat...
Batman
Hi, how many mules are there in the twenty mule team?
Linear Mode
