Chemical bombardments used to target backyard mosquitoes are beginning to worry scientists who fear over-use of pesticides is harming pollinators and worsening a growing threat to birds that eat insects.
FILE - A Miami-Dade County mosquito control worker sprays around a home in the Wynwood area of Miami on Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, to help prevent the spread of the Zika virus. – 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.
“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. More than 40% of insect species worldwide are threatened with extinction, including some pollinator bees and butterflies, according to the journal Biological Conservation.
In 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported “dramatic” increases in illnesses spread by mosquitoes and other blood feeders. Zika, Chikungunya and West Nile viruses have turned up in the U.S. And Asian tiger and yellow fever types of mosquitoes that originated in the tropics are now common in Southern states and have begun afflicting Southern California.
A Zika outbreak that began in 2015 and spread to more than 80 countries helped fuel the surge in the business, said Daniel Markowski, technical adviser to the American Mosquito Control Association, a 1,200-member nonprofit group. “If I’m doing my job, you won’t need my mosquito service over time,” said Dan Killingsworth, operations director for Environmental Security Pest Control, based in Panama City Beach, Florida. “If I can reduce mosquitoes on your property to where they’re no longer a problem, we can potentially eliminate that service.”
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