For 26 years, a town in southern Maine has used an unconventional method combat the ever-annoying mosquito: dragonflies. Rather than spraying presticides, the Wells Chamber of Commerce sells bags of dragonfly nymphs. NHPR's Dan Gorenstein reports.
For 26 years a town in southern Maine has used an unconventional method to combat the ever-annoying mosquito: dragonflies. Rather than spraying pesticides, the Wells Chamber of Commerce sells bags of dragonfly nymphs. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
It?s summer. The air is sticky. And it?s too hot to stay inside. You head for the proch, settle into a favorite chair and enjoy dusk. A notorious time when the bugs can be bnrutal. Instead of that mosquito hum in the ear, all you hear is crickets. Hard to believe? Ask Marty Goodman. The Wells resident who has stocked her place with dragonfly nymphs for as long as the town program has been in existence.
The 85-year-old used to buy a bag of 100 every year. It?s easy she says, scatter a few of these great big flies around which eat up some of the mosquito larvae, wait two or three weeks and then:
Then they turn into these beautiful drangonflies. They have blue ones, and green ones, and silver ones, and red ones, oh they are gorgeous. They will land on the back of your hand, they are gentle creatures.
It took Goodman three of four years to cultivate a large enough population to wipe out those pesky bloodsuckers. Goodman admits she will have the occasional wasp or bee in the spring, but not of the awful creatures. And it?s not like she ended up replacing one irritant with another.
Which is probably why the town program has been so successful. In 1975 the town of Wells made a good for the environment decision. They opted to use the mosquito?s natural predator over pesticides. So every spring for the past four years the Dragon Lady Queen, otherwise known as Wendy Griffiths, drives her truck to an insectory in Massachusetts and picks up stryofoam coolers full of dragonfly nymphs. And word is spreading.
Wells is a good study point. For the time I have been doing it, our customers wouldn?t go a year without replenishing them because they work so well?so the proof is in the pudding, and the only way to know the program works is to have them and see the difference they make.
Last year 100 more people came in and bought for next year. Griffiths says she sees about 25-50 new people every year get hooked. University of New Hampshire entomologist John Burger says he has never seen a study to suppost the dragonfly theory. It?s not that he doesn?t believe it, he just hasn?t seen it.
The idea that there is one magic bullet out there to solve a problem is often simplistic. On the other hand, you have people worried about the environment?and they have a legitimate concern that they do something other than artificially control the environment.
For the Dragon Lady Queen, she feels good about the solution. It?s environmentally sound. She even has a maternal feel.
Sometimes I see one and think, ?there goes one of my babies.?
For NHPR News, I?m Dan Gorenstein
