In a message dated 9/2/00 9:21:24 PM, Pollinator writes:

<< I'd like to see a followup, John, >>

   Thank you. Letters or posts to the magazine or to a writer let him and the
editor know where more coverage is needed. Also, your letters in the "Letters
to the Editor" column can provide a vital corrective when something get's
omitted or you feel there is something that needs to be corrected or
amplified. Sometimes in trying to show the big sweep within space limitations
and on deadline, important tangents and significant facts get brief
treatment. Or maybe another way of looking at the problem makes more sense to
you. In the end, the point is to put the best information out there, so write
if you feel the need.
   In regards to your point about beneficials and the "pesticide treadmill,"
here's a graph I cut before submitting the pest abatement story:
   "There was other evidence of pesticide damage. Over at Great Kills beach a
week later (after Sept. 3), a Staten Island naturalist, Paul Lederer, was
counting dragonflies. He tallied 30 on September 11. The next day, 17 hours
after helicopters sprayed the area with malathion, he counted only one.
Ironically, dragonflies are voracious predators of mosquitoes."
   If the pesticides that knock back the mosquitoes are killing the
beneficials that prey on them (and sometimes on bees too), more spraying will
be needed next year and the year after that and so on... I agree that
pesticides are necessary and use them myself (Apistan), but even when
properly used to the best of our current knowledge, they can create other
problems.
   Interestingly, according to several people I've spoken with (scientist and
park ranger) programs to control invasive plants like purple loosestrife have
experienced setbacks when areas where beneficial insects have been introduced
were sprayed with pesticides. Controlling invasives cost an estimated $138
billion a year between the damage they cause and the controls used to curb
them, accroding to a study published last year by David Pimentel, a Cornell
University ecologist.
   If we spend a million dollars carpet bombing the swamps and the woods and
the riparian areas with pesticides to control the mosquitoes, are we wasting
a billion dollars spent on beneficial insects?

John A. Mitchell
Contributing Editor
Bee Culture magazine
Any opinions expressed in this post are strictly my own, and do not
necessarily represent those of Bee Culture magazine or its publisher.