Backyard mosquito spraying booms, but may be too deadly

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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Backyard mosquito spraying booms, but may be too deadly

The Associated Press

August 19, 2022, 1:08 AM

CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — It’s an increasingly familiar sight in U.S. cities and suburbs: A van pulls up to the curb. Workers wearing gloves, masks and other protective gear strap on backpack-type mechanisms with plastic hoses, similar to leaf blowers. ... Revving up the motors, they drench trees, bushes and even house walls with pesticides targeting an age-old menace: mosquitoes.

The winged, spindly-legged bloodsuckers have long been the bane of backyard barbecues and, in tropical nations, carriers of serious disease. Now, with climate change widening the insect’s range and lengthening its prime season, more Americans are resorting to the booming industry of professional yard spraying. ... “If you like to be outside, it certainly makes it more pleasant not to be swatting mosquitos and worrying about all the issues,” said Marty Marino, a recent customer in Michigan’s Cascade Township, a bedroom community near Grand Rapids.

But the chemical bombardment is beginning to worry scientists who fear over-use of pesticides is harming pollinators and worsening a growing threat to birds that eat insects. ... “The materials these companies spray kill all bugs,” said Lynn Goldman, an environmental health professor at George Washington University and former assistant administrator for toxic substances at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“That includes bees, butterflies and all kinds of beneficial bugs that maybe people don’t love but should,” Goldman said. “It’s not good to have this kind of indiscriminate killing, messing up the whole ecosystem.” ... More than 40% of insect species worldwide are threatened with extinction, including some pollinator bees and butterflies, according to the journal Biological Conservation.

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Follow John Flesher on Twitter: @JohnFlesher

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

[CousinIT]

1. aphids. Mosquitos eat aphids. Kill the mosquitos and aphids will destroy..

...your crepe myrtle. I found that out the hard way. Had to stop the mosquito spraying. It worked to keep mosquitos away but it upset the whole damn ecosystem in my yard.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. So *that's* how you get rid of crepe myrtle !

Nothing else seems to work.

[CousinIT]

5. No kidding. A few years later I had the crepe myrtle removed but..

..some parts of the damn root remain and keep coming back up. ARGH!

I've grown to hate the damn things. They're nice in parks but if you have them in your yard and want to get rid of them...good damn luck!

[central scrutinizer]

2. Was routine in the 1950s

I remember trucks driving through the alley behind our house in Grand Island, Nebraska in the summer releasing a fog of something.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. They still come around occasionally here in N. AL.

When we were kids (late '60s, early '70s) we would run and ride our bikes after the trucks just to run/ride through the fog.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Now that you mention it, I remember that, too. They'd spray to kill the mosquitos, I think

This was in the '60s, Saratoga Springs, New York. I'm wondering if my brother remembers better than I do.

[drmeow]

6. My in-laws,

living in South Carolina, have a misting system to "control bugs." After they had lived there about 1 - 2 years, we were there visiting and they commented that they weren't seeing as many birds as they used to. My husband and I both reacted (not to them - not worth the fight) with "ya think?"