Part of the Bay Area News Group

Archive for the 'Pest control' Category

Rodent pest control: Use caution when using poison bait

Ground squirrel. Photo by Brian Murphy, Walnut Creek, CA.
ground squirrel3

More problems with using poison to control rodents. There’s the risk of secondary poisoning of wildlife and pets as suggested in the DFG news release below. There is also the risk of direct poisoning of wildlife and pets around your house and yard when you use these poisons.

Rats and mice sometimes carry pieces of poison bait from supposedly safe bait stations used around your home and leave these pieces of poison bait lying in unprotected places in your yard or house where pets (or children!), or other wild creatures can find them.  If you must control rodents, I recommend using traps and NOT poisons. /Gary

DFG News, Aug. 17, 2010:
Wildlife Experts Issue Warning about Controlling Rodent Pests with Poison

State and county officials remind Californians to use caution when using poison baits (rodenticides) to control rodent pests. Careless use of these chemicals has injured and killed wildlife and pets throughout the state.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
Under: Ground squirrels, Pest control, Pesticide, Pets & Poisons, Poison, Rat poison | 3 Comments »

Pest control in the tropics

While visiting my son Jeff and his family in Panama over the last couple of weeks, my wife Lois and I stayed in one of their spare bedrooms — in-between wonderful visits to local rainforests, rivers, parks, coffee plantations and extinct volcanoes.

One morning I woke up with the sun and was lying in bed on my back when I suddenly realized something was moving on the ceiling. A lot of somethings, actually. Gecko somethings. I counted nine of the tiny 2-inch long, quarter-inch wide geckos skittering across the ceiling and up and down the walls, searching for bugs and spiders to eat.

They appear out of nowhere to patrol the walls and cracks in your house at night, and when the sun comes up, or you make a sudden movement, or clap your hands … POOF … they’re instantly gone. They are amazingly quick. And you don’t even know they’re there until it gets dark again.

That’s one of the neat things about houses in the tropics. There are a LOT of insects in jungle country and the houses come equipped with their own insect control program in the form of these Lilliputian lizards.

Posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2006
Under: Pest control | 2 Comments »