Bat houses and brood boxes are a natural way to control mosquitoes. With all the West Nile warnings from the CDC, installing one of F.H.P.’s bat boxes may allow you to enjoy the outdoors again.
July 18, 2005 (Press Release) --
Virginia Beach, VA, July 18, 2005 – Want to cut your citronella costs for the summer and still control mosquitoes? Then why not put Nature to work?
With the Center for Disease Control warning that the West Nile Virus may be making a resurgence due to the wet and mild winter just passed, many are turning to an unlikely source for relief from summer pests: bats. Bats, or more specifically the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) which is common throughout the country, are gluttonous little rodents that can each eat 500 or more mosquitoes per hour. Think about a small colony of 250 bats, feeding for eight hours per night, and you’re looking at tons of mosquitoes destroyed over the course of a summer and without the environmental damage done by other methods.
“Unfortunately, many people still see bats in the same context as Dracula,” says Dr. Ed Markin of F. Hooker Products (F.H.P.). “They are misunderstood, unnecessarily feared and becoming endangered when they could be put to work for our benefit.”
F.H.P. makes commercial bat houses and brood boxes for the National Park Service, U.S. Army, several universities, and virtually every vineyard in the world. Bats are instrumental in wine production as they perform as much as 40% of the pollination of grapes. F.H.P. now offers bat domiciles for private use starting at around $40 for a single chamber box that will house 250 or so bats.
“People are starting to warm to the idea of controlling insects via natural means and this can only bode well for bats. I live next to a canal, near the Great Dismal Swamp, and see on average less than a dozen mosquitoes per year thanks to my bats.” Markin continues, “Which may sound odd since I only see a bat about once every other year. They make great neighbors since they leave the box after dark and return before morning.”
Bats are a useful means of insect control, according to the Bat Conservation International, an organization that champions the bat and monitors populations of the various species worldwide. The combination of pesticides and lost habitat is thinning bat populations at the same time mosquitoes and other pests are developing resistance to many insecticides. If you have an eave or a tree over 14 feet tall, and a ready supply of mosquitoes, a bat house could work for you.
For further information on bat houses and bats, visit the F.H.P. web site at http://www.batboxpro.com/ and the BCI site at http://www.batcon.org. And try not to imagine what tons of mosquitoes would look like in a pile. It makes Dracula seem positively cuddly in comparison.
With the Center for Disease Control warning that the West Nile Virus may be making a resurgence due to the wet and mild winter just passed, many are turning to an unlikely source for relief from summer pests: bats. Bats, or more specifically the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) which is common throughout the country, are gluttonous little rodents that can each eat 500 or more mosquitoes per hour. Think about a small colony of 250 bats, feeding for eight hours per night, and you’re looking at tons of mosquitoes destroyed over the course of a summer and without the environmental damage done by other methods.
“Unfortunately, many people still see bats in the same context as Dracula,” says Dr. Ed Markin of F. Hooker Products (F.H.P.). “They are misunderstood, unnecessarily feared and becoming endangered when they could be put to work for our benefit.”
F.H.P. makes commercial bat houses and brood boxes for the National Park Service, U.S. Army, several universities, and virtually every vineyard in the world. Bats are instrumental in wine production as they perform as much as 40% of the pollination of grapes. F.H.P. now offers bat domiciles for private use starting at around $40 for a single chamber box that will house 250 or so bats.
“People are starting to warm to the idea of controlling insects via natural means and this can only bode well for bats. I live next to a canal, near the Great Dismal Swamp, and see on average less than a dozen mosquitoes per year thanks to my bats.” Markin continues, “Which may sound odd since I only see a bat about once every other year. They make great neighbors since they leave the box after dark and return before morning.”
Bats are a useful means of insect control, according to the Bat Conservation International, an organization that champions the bat and monitors populations of the various species worldwide. The combination of pesticides and lost habitat is thinning bat populations at the same time mosquitoes and other pests are developing resistance to many insecticides. If you have an eave or a tree over 14 feet tall, and a ready supply of mosquitoes, a bat house could work for you.
For further information on bat houses and bats, visit the F.H.P. web site at http://www.batboxpro.com/ and the BCI site at http://www.batcon.org. And try not to imagine what tons of mosquitoes would look like in a pile. It makes Dracula seem positively cuddly in comparison.
Email
Print
SPAM
