Hi Charles.

15-Jul-03 22:01:06, Charles Angelich wrote to Phil Marlowe


 CA> 1237c3aa3e29 tech

 CA> Hello Phil -

 >>> Insects with short life cycles are difficult to control. The other
 >>> things that eat mosquitos are as much a pestulance as the mosquito
 >>> (or close). The English Sparrows so common in Michigan were
 >>> brought here to rid us of the mosquitos, now how to get rid of the
 >>> sparrows?

 PM>> Yep, just heard a radio bit on that. Seems importing those
 PM>> sparrows may have been based on bad science.

 CA> Difficult to say. We don't know how many mosquitos we would have
 CA> if the sparrows weren't here.

 PM>> Since the West Nile scare that kind of of solution has been
 PM>> proposed again. In fact, even the bat advocates have been out in
 PM>> force, suggesting the building of bat houses and so on, because
 PM>> bats supposedly eat something like their weight in mosquitos per
 PM>> day [I forget the exact numbers, but something spectacular like
 PM>> that]. But according to a local university, this is a flawed
 PM>> conclusion based on an old study where bats were put in a room
 PM>> with lots of mosquitos -- and of course they munched away. But in
 PM>> real life, while bats do eat mosquitos, they also eat every other
 PM>> insect, and apparently only about 5 percent of their diet is
 PM>> mosquito. And newer studies show no noticeable mosquito
 PM>> reduction.

 CA> "Killer Bees" springs to mind. 'Science' and scientists have been
 CA> reduced to 'charlatan' and scam artists like the Ghost Busters in
 CA> my view. I've met a few impressive engineers in my life but very
 CA> few and it's been a huge disappointment to me.

 PM>> But I don't think we've had anything in North America like the
 PM>> damage wrought by the rabbits and toads that were brought to
 PM>> Australia.

 CA> I somehow thought the problems in Australia were frogs? I saw a
 CA> documentary about that some time back and it's definitely not
 CA> funny.

No, that was an episode of "the Simpsons" :)  The only frog problems
australia has is diminishing number of native frogs.

Cane toads OTOH are an introdiced species which is invading the country.
rabits already have, foxes too..

 -=> Bye <=-

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