ANIMAL INSTINCT

INSIGHT ON COVID-19 PEST ACTIVITY

MR. ANGELO TOMISELLI, RODENT PEST TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

As 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 natural means of control, they will have to consume or deplete the pest population by 70%. Its just not possible in most cases.

So, now that we know we are part of the pest issue let’s look into the flip side of what human inactivity is doing to the pest populations, mainly due to the COVID-19 quarantine. Human activity (or in this case, a lack therefore of) has a ripple effect on many things. Pest activity isn’t one of the first things that come to mind, but it should. A side effect that is often talked about in pest control circles but gets little attention outside of the industry is the result of people feeding the animals. We are seeing the result of that with the lockdowns across the globe. As quarantines began and travel was restricted along with it the tourists many people began to see the effect on local animal populations that, well grew accustomed to man’s presence but were now presented a dramatic decrease in those activities. Since I can remember when I have always tried to educate people on the fact that feeding animals doesn’t help them, it hurts them.

We have seen this play itself out on global stage in areas where animals have grown accustom to have tourists feed them. In Nara Park in Japan the deer expect that tourists will come, buy the rice crackers and get a well-deserved meal after bowing. In Thailand a scene that was on tv that was somewhat disconcerting was the large numbers of monkeys, macaques that were fighting each other over crumbs. Even in India a rare Civit was seen walking down the street, an animal that was once believed to be extinct and is rarely ever seen, literally strolling down the street.

This is why feeding animals actually does them more harm than good. Animals that are or once were used to searching and finding their own food have no longer do. They feed on a diet of whatever we give them which is usually more harmful to them and starts to diminish their desire and ability to feed themselves.

Remember Newtons Third law of Motion; For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Feeding of animals allows us to get closer to them observe them and take in their beauty. It is breaks down and, in some cases, completely erases their suspicions of man. This is not a desired effect that we want to have in our wildlife. They should and needs to remain wild.

This is not just for our benefit, but mostly theirs, once an animal loses its natural fear of man it begins to act outside of its natural instincts, this usually results in behavior that is not welcomed. Animals will become more aggressive because they expect a meal and when they don’t get what they want or need their behavior can be greatly affected.

Rodent populations that were dependent on this food supply began to compete and their food sources all but dried up. With less human activity animals and especially rodents began to venture as they felt more at ease by the lack of our presence. This is happening in some unusual ways, businesses like car lots have seen an increase in rodent damage to their vehicles.

Going through this pandemic has shown us many things, it has allowed us in the pest control industry to see what we’ve known for years play out in real time, that humans effect and contribute to pest populations and activity. We’ve always known and seen what our presence contributes in the way of food, water and harborage for pests and now we are seeing what that looks like when our presence is almost fully removed from the situation.

With a whole scale reduction in our movement and use of facilities we have seen that pests will quickly move into those areas, not because they weren’t always there but because we no longer are.

Angelo Tomiselli is the owner of Rodent Pest Technologies, Inc. He has been in the pest control industry for over 30 years. He holds a QAL, Operator branch 2 and trapping license which allows his company to provide a wide variety of services to over 800 communities throughout Southern Ca. Rodent Pest Technologies Inc is a full-service company providing inspections and treatments ranging from insects and termites to animal trapping and bird exclusion. He is a member of CAI in the Orange, San Diego, and Inland Empire.