ANIMAL INSTINCT INSIGHT ON COVID-19 PEST ACTIVITY BY: MR. ANGELO TOMISELLI, RODENT PEST TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
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s 2020 approached everyone was anticipatory with what the year would bring. Little could we know or suspect the plague that was about to come upon us. As concerns and fears grew and local, state and federal government lockdowns began reducing human activity as much as 85% in some areas. Before we dive deep into what this all meant, we need to explore what human activity has on animal populations, their activity including the pests. Our presence has a twofold effect, some animals will be driven away from man, they will retreat and try to maintain as much of their secret life as possible. The flip side to that, other animals will begin to associate man with food and draw closer and even grow to depend on us for sustainability. In the case with rodents our presence is actually beneficial to them. When people move into an area, the environment and what occurs can and does change drastically. The natural ebb and flow of pest populations is allowed to take on a more even rise and fall, our presence if I may steal the term, flattens the curve. So, when times of drought or lack of food are occurring naturally which would in turn result in a declining pest population, because we provide habitat, food
and water their populations don’t fall as they would in nature. In fact, quite the opposite, they are allowed to grow because of the availability of these items. Our homes, landscape, irrigation and trash are all contributing factors to pest population growth even during hard times. As for predators, while even under ideal conditions predatory populations aren’t a controlling factor in pest populations. Most pests breed at a rate higher than the predatory animals can feed on them. Take owls for instance, in the past several years I’ve received many questions and even requests for installing owl boxes in communities to help control rats and populations. While this sounds ideal, he math on a natural predator heling to control a natural pest, doesn’t quite add up. Rats for example can produce over a thousand descendants in a years’ time, conditions will contribute to this number being higher or lower but as an average. Even the hungriest of Owls will consume, let’s be optimistic, 3 rats a week, which is a consumption rate of 156 rats in a year. For a predatory animal to be considered a CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
ISSUE TWO 2020 • CONNECT MAGAZINE
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