PETA’s entomological ignorance…a bit worse than I thought

The other day, I went on a rant about PETA acting overly sanctimonious by sending President Obama a flytrap because he had the audacity to swat a fly on national TV.

Well…one of my readers forwarded me this article about humane cockroach control. When PETA doesn’t have to distort any facts, they actually write halfway decent natural history articles…which genuinely surprises me. The only thing I can really see wrong in the bee/wasp article is that they referred to the worker wasps as ‘male’ and the central reproductive as the ‘queen’. The first kind of jumps out at an entomology student…the workers in bee and wasp colonies are sterile females. The second is a bit more esoteric…wasp ‘queens’ are usually referred to as ‘foundresses’ instead of queens. Different social structures and all that.

In short, they’re not the best articles. If I were to turn them in for one of my classes, I’d expect a passing grade. So they’re above AIG in this respect.

But let’s dissect the ‘humane cockroach control’ article, shall we?

First, you need to know how cockroaches are controlled. Back in the day, roaches were controlled by spraying and fumigation. Exterminators would come in and spray pesticides in their hiding places every so often. If this didn’t work, the house was simply tented. You can see why this would fall out of favor. It’s time consuming, messy and you risk a lot of contamination. Obviously a better system was needed.

As we learned about the biology of the cockroach, better tools came along. Less toxic sprays were developed (YAY pyrethroids!), we learned a bit about cockroach pheromones and were eventually able to invent traps that would attract them, we learned about the chemicals that regulate cockroach growth so we could effectively sterilize them. In short, we learned a lot about their biology and came up with a plethora of solutions. We also learned about how we could effectively apply those tools.

We have this way of thinking that cockroaches are a sign of messy housekeeping. In a lot of cases, this is true. In many, it’s not. Cockroaches can eat things like paper, glue, soap…they’re notorious for being able to eat just about anything. Some cockroaches can be done away with almost entirely by fixing leaks around the house. The german cockroach is another story, though. It’s famous for persisting in perfectly clean houses. Cleaning your way out of a cockroach infestation is not a 100 percent solution.

This is why baits are an important part of cockroach control. Part of the research in developing more effective cockroach control went to figuring out what attracted the cockroaches and what made them start eating. If we clean up all other sources of food, that bait which contains a slow acting pesticide becomes the best looking source of food around. It’s passed out at the site where they congregate and since the nymphs eat the frass (again…more research here), they pick the poison up as well.

So…where does the PETA article go wrong?

First, they point out the multitude of things that cockroaches eat:

Cockroaches first appeared on the Earth in the Paleozoic era, approximately 400 million years ago, and they have changed very little since then. These insects have probably withstood the test of time because of their amazing inherent ability to survive extreme disturbance events such as floods, droughts, and fire. Although cockroaches have preferred food sources, if they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat almost anything. Even products that most humans would not consider edible, such as starch-based paints, wallpaper paste, envelope glue, and bar soaps, provide critical nutrients for these tiny animals. Cockroaches can also hold their breath for up to 40 minutes and can run about 59 inches per second—proportionally, that’s three times as fast as a cheetah!

And then they tell you that you can clean yourself out of a cockroach infestation. In a nutshell, the article tells you to eliminate cockroach hiding places, set out live traps, eliminate food and water sources and spread repellent spices around*. Sorry to say, but no matter how hard you try you simply can’t eliminate every crack around your house. It’s also impossible to eliminate everything a cockroach could use for food and repellents will only go so far. It might make them avoid certain areas, but it won’t drive them completely out of the house.

As for the others?

Wasps and bees are a minor annoyance for most people. I wouldn’t tell people to destroy a wasp nest unless it posed an immediate danger to them. Africanized bees fit into this category and the category could be broadened pretty much infinitely for those who are allergic to their venom.

It’s easy to tell folks to ignore that part of your yard, but if you’re a suburbanite who can’t mow half his yard because you’ll be covered in pissed off bees-well, that’s a problem that needs to be taken care of.

It’s obvious that PETA chose the ‘easy’ insect pests to do their ‘creulty-free pest control’ webpages. I’d like to see their web pages on head lice, termites and bed bugs.

*I’m not sure where they’re getting that cucumbers repel roaches. I know plenty of people who keep roaches and cucumbers are commonly fed with no ill effects.