1237c3aa3e29
tech



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. 

Difficult to say. We don't know how many mosquitos we would
have 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
PM> out in force, suggesting the building of bat houses and so
PM> on, because bats supposedly eat something like their weight
PM> in mosquitos per day [I forget the exact numbers, but
PM> something spectacular like that]. But according to a local
PM> university, this is a flawed conclusion based on an old
PM> study where bats were put in a room with lots of mosquitos
PM> -- and of course they munched away. But in real life, while
PM> bats do eat mosquitos, they also eat every other insect,
PM> and apparently only about 5 percent of their diet is
PM> mosquito. And newer studies show no noticeable mosquito
PM> reduction. 

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

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

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

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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