Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:31:35 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Insecticide question In-Reply-To: <001301c31929$a2d00080$59bd5b0c@Norm1> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Norm -- Over 30 species of mosquito spread West Nile, and the spraying will probably have the greatest impact on the Salt Marsh Mosquito, not one of the worst carriers as I recall from recent articles. Many jurisdictions (including Montgomery Co.) feel that spraying for adult mosquitoes is NOT the way to reduce populations, but rather attacking the breeding areas through elimination or use of Bacillus thurengiensis (sp?) treatments (such as "Mosquito Dunks." Asian Tiger Mosquitoes can breed in 1/4" of water, e.g., in plant saucers, roof gutters, old discarded tin cans, etc. and even in agitated water such as an ornamental pool. We had to remove and drain our little Hometics bubbler fountain from our sun porch as it had Tiger Mosquitoes breeding in it last year -- hard to believe but true! The flowing water never slowed them down a bit! Permethrin is VERY toxic to marine invertebrates and I think using it at West Ocean City is very ill-advised. (I say this as a marine scientist, now.) It will kill crabs, grass shrimp, and other arthropods important in the food chain. I do not know about effects on marine worms. If it were my property, I wouldn't allow it. (But I would try to reduce breeding sites for mosquitoes around my property and invest in Mosquito dunks. Gail Mackiernan Colesville, MD on 05/13/2003 4:28 AM, Norm Saunders at marshhawk@ATT.NET wrote: > I just received a note from the powers that be in West Ocean City asking me > to approve spraying on my property for mosquitos (and to include a check to > help pay the costs associated with spraying). They appealed to everyone's > terror quotient by talking at length about the horrors of West Nile Virus > and the Indian Tiger Mosquito that spreads it (I think this was the name > they used). > > In any event, they want to spray with Permethrin. Does anyone out there > have a feel for this insecticide and how much it might affect insect > populations other than mosquitos? Could it have a direct impact on birds or > only indirect by affecting food sources? > > Best, > Norm > ============================ > Norman C. Saunders > Colesville and West Ocean City, MD > marshhawk@att.net > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================