Mosquitoes and More consults in the middle east!
Posted by admin on Dec 24, 2008
In early november Jim Jackson President of Mistaway Systems Inc. Contacted me about consulting a startup company Ecovar in the middle east, on some large installations. I was advised I would travel to Dubai and Beirut lebanon. Against what the state department website said and my better judgment I accepted. I figured hey it would be an adventure right!? Boy what an experience it was so the flights were booked and the day after we got back from Barbados I was on my way to Dubai. After about 40 hours on planes every flight I had was either delayed or missed due to problems. I arrived in glorious dubai finally I could install some misting systems. Below is a shot of just one of the terminals at the airport, also are some shots of my middle eastern counterparts, and some places we did installations at while in dubai. The hospitality in the middle east is amazing everyone I met was really nice. I can’t thank ecovar enough for the oportunity to show them more about the systems and showing me the middle east and all it has to offer.
How many, and what species, of non-target insects will these systems eliminate in Dubai?
With any insect problem there can always be repercussions but these installs are at local privately owned properties. Unfortunately in Dubai their target pest is a fly so there is day misting going on. Here in the states we don’t have as many fly problems as we have mosquito problems so there are very few non targeted insects because mosquitoes are one of the few nocturnal insects. You bring up a great point so lets talk about Dubai where they target fly’s, so your doing some day misting. So you might kill some other non targeted insects but you are also only misting on average, a 1/4 acre or less of land depending on the size of the system. I am making an assumption you ask from an impact perspective what are you doing to the environment? Well you might have non target casualties, but does a 1/4 acre bug reduced zone where the customer that hires us is happy, actually make an impact. Lets say here in the states 50 years from now 25% of the population has a system which we all know you’d never have that kind of market penetration but were going insanely high. Is that really going to impact the entire eco system? 25% of the land you will have less bugs, simple as that. These systems aren’t magic it’s not an eradication it’s a dramatic reduction. So the impact your making overall is little at best. Lets also talk about the municipalities which have done a great job here in Florida. In the last 75 years have reduce our mosquito population by something close to 90% of what it was. However if you told the average Floridian that they’d laugh and still tell you that last 10% is still going strong. even if you got this figure to 99% that last 1% is still enough to bother my bbq! Lets also talk about how they do it, they fog at night time with a highly residual product much stronger than anything that is labeled for use in a system. since their target pest is nocturnal they mist only at night and then the residual lasts for weeks. Does that Kill non-target insects? of course, and if it’s known their reduction has been close to 90% what has this done to non-target insects? I still have butterflies in my yard and my fare share of other insects, and I have a system. But my last fourth of July party people that didn’t even know what I did for a living were commenting wow there’s no mosquitoes out here!
Thanks for the great question hope my assumptions weren’t too far off base and hoped this information helped!