Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Aerial Spraying in Dallas County


As I read through our classmates blogs, I read an article in Rohan Adiga's GOVT 2306 Blog about aerial spraying for mosquitos in Dallas County. I was recently reading about this issue in the Dallas Morning News and found his blog interesting. Rohan Adiga argues that we should not be spraying pesticides into the air to deal with the county's recent outbreak of West Nile Virus. I agree with Adiga's argument and think we should not be spraying pesticides into the air to kill mosquitos.
An article in the Dallas Morning News titled, "To spray or not to spray: The West Nile Virus battle" protesters of aerial spraying give many reasons why they are opposed to this method of control. First off, it is unsure how effective the method of aerial spraying is in killing mosquitos and ultimately stopping cases of the West Nile Virus.  In a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services it states that ground and aerial spraying are the least effective mosquito control techniques. An argument in the article is that when aerial spraying is effective it does not just kill mosquitos, but beneficial insects who eat mosquitos. Spraying ultimately changes the natural ecosystem of animals in the area that feed on different insects. Many are also arguing that people should just be spraying themselves with insect repellent. A bee farmer in one article argued that the pesticides would kill his bees and ultimately his livelihood. It has also been shown that only 1 in 150 people infected with West Nile Virus develop a severe illness and they are usually already sick and not healthy. In conclusion, I agree with Rohan Adiga and believe we should not be spraying poisons into the air to kill insects.

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