One of the more disturbing articles from the Billings’ newspaper was the announcement of 500 confirmed West Nile Virus cases in Montana this year with one fatality. Since my dad is a survivor of the West Nile Virus and I have witnessed first hand the misery this illness can deal a person, such articles catch my attention. As with all such articles you have the obligatory section on how to prevent mosquitoes from breeding by removing all stagnant water sources. Obviously we can’t prevent all such breeding as it is a well known fact that a blood gorged mosquito is a promiscuous mosquito and the last I heard Trojan didn’t make anything in their size. People are going to get bit!
What I do wonder about is why we haven’t tried other measures such as portable bat farms. For a small fee you get ten pairs of breeding bats to relocate to your house. You provide them a convenient place to hide during the day and at night they remove your mosquito problem. Are there some setbacks? Sure, guano isn’t the most pleasant smell you can have and they will most likely scare the beejeezus out of you on occasion, but for the most part, I think the good outweighs the bad.
Breed some politically militant crows to address the issue. Since the West Nile Virus has made it into our country, it has successfully wiped out 50% of our crow population while it has not affected the grackle population at all. That my friend is aviary genocide in anyone’s book and I have to wonder where is the NAACP when you need them? (National Association of Agitated Crow Personnel)
Develop a strain of HIV for mosquitoes. Let the little buggers orgy themselves to death.
Or ban nightfall and daybreak. This is not that big of a deal since we already dictate what hours the sun is going to shine during the spring and summer months.
Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly. I think I see a mosquito licking its chops right now…
