pests

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This City Is Battling a Squirrel Scourge

Locals in Minot, ND, have been fighting the rodents for 2 decades, and the humans aren't winning

(Newser) - The Richardson's ground squirrel weighs less than a pound, is about a foot long, and is native to the northern Plains. The little critter also is a ferocious tunneler and is exasperating the folks of Minot, North Dakota, where it's burrowing everywhere from vacant lots to the middle...

Giant Parachuting Spiders Will Be Summering in NY, NJ
Giant Parachuting
Spiders Are Back
Jun 5, 2024 9:40 AM CDT

Giant Parachuting Spiders Are Back

Invasive but usually harmless Joro spiders are headed up the East Coast, sights set on NY, NJ

(Newser) - If you're an arachnophobe living on the East Coast, you may want to hunker down in your bunker for a while: The Joro spiders are back. NJ Pest Control had warned earlier this year that the invasive species also known as Trichonephila clavata would likely be returning to the...

California Is Fighting Fruit Flies With Fruit Flies
California Is Releasing
Millions of Fruit Flies
in case you missed it
Nov 5, 2023 7:02 AM CST

California Is Releasing Millions of Fruit Flies

State is fighting Medfly infestation by dropping sterile males over LA County

(Newser) - California is dealing with an invasion of Mediterranean fruit flies—aka Medflies—by saturating the affected area with millions of fruit flies. The California Department of Food and Agriculture says it plans to drop 250,000 sterile male fruit flies per square mile over a 9-square-mile area of Los Angeles...

Ahead of Paris Olympics, a Pesky Issue: 'No One Is Safe'

Bedbugs are overrunning France, with the Games less than 10 months away

(Newser) - The Summer Olympics kick off in Paris in a little under 10 months, but France is now contending with a pesky issue it hopes it can contain before then. NPR reports on a nationwide "resurgence of bloodsucking bedbugs," six-legged insects about the size of an apple seed that...

Scientists Discover Why Biting Flies Are Attracted to Blue

Daytime biting flies misclassify blue objects as animals

(Newser) - Bluebirds, blue-tailed skinks, blue whales, and Babe the Big Blue Ox aside, blue animals are rare in nature, but biting flies still associate the color with food, researchers say. Lead researcher Roger Santer from Aberystwyth University in Wales says entomologists have long known that biting flies active in the daytime,...

Border Officials Spot This Bug for the First Time

Insect 'corimelaena palmeri' was in a shipment of flowers from Mexico

(Newser) - US border officials intercepted an unwanted visitor at the border—a bug never before seen in this country. Customs inspectors spotted the insect corimelaena palmeri in a shipment of cut flowers from Mexico, reports CNN . A news release from US Customs and Border Protection says inspectors at the Otay Mesa...

These Wasps Love Planes, Could Bring Them Down

Airports employing insecticide, Pitot tube covers to deter keyhole wasp nests

(Newser) - There are numerous examples of birds colliding with planes in incidents that prove deadly for human passengers, hence why airports use various methods to deter fowl. Now, several airports are working to deter a smaller, airborne pest that also proves a deadly threat: wasps. As the Wall Street Journal reports,...

Congrats, NYC: You're Not the 'Rattiest' City in America

Chicago takes that honor in rankings by Orkin pest control company; the Big Apple comes in 2nd

(Newser) - Think "rats in the city," and many people are likely to envision the rodents who creep around in the Big Apple's alleyways and subway system. It's not New York City, though, but Chicago atop Orkin's list of the "rattiest" cities in America. USA Today...

Pest Company Makes 'Creepy, Crawly' $2K Offer to Homeowners

The Pest Informer will pay you to let 100 cockroaches loose in your home for 30 days

(Newser) - Looking for "100 creepy, crawly new roommates"? That's how WREG frames a rather unusual call for homeowners (or those who have explicit written permission from the homeowner) who are willing to allow 100 cockroaches to be released in their homes as part of a North Carolina pest...

Family Dollar's Rat Problem Just Got Bigger

Arkansas is suing the chain over yearslong infestation at distribution warehouse

(Newser) - Earlier this year it emerged that Family Dollar had a problem with rats . Now the discount chain has a related problem with a bigger foe—the attorney general of Arkansas. The state's Leslie Rutledge filed suit against Family Dollar last week over the previously revealed rat infestation at a...

Relentless 'Murder Hornets' Keep Building Nests

Wildlife officials in Washington state have destroyed 2 this year, and found a third one

(Newser) - Murder hornets—more formally known as Asian giant hornets —seem bent on putting down roots in North America. Wildlife officials in Washington state already have destroyed two nests this year and say they'll soon wipe out a newly discovered third one, reports the Guardian . The invasive species first...

1K Cats Descend on Chicago to Take Down Its Rats

Hundreds of feral felines released by animal shelter to deal with city's rodent problem

(Newser) - Chicago has a rodent problem—one so bad the city has been deemed the "rattiest city" in the nation for the last six years. One local animal shelter has been hard at work combating the issue, using a rather low-tech method: It releases hundreds of feral cats onto the...

200K Mice Plagued the Islands. Amazingly, There Are Now None

A seeming victory for biodiversity on New Zealand's Antipodes Islands

(Newser) - A subantarctic archipelago is making "huge news": The New Zealand Herald reports there are officially no more mice on the country's Antipodes Islands, which once housed up to 200,000 of the rodents. They caused a big threat to the World Heritage Site by preying on native birds,...

Tiny Invader Threatens Food Staple in Africa

Fall armyworm is wiping out maize crops

(Newser) - Still reeling from a severe drought, Zimbabwe is now on the brink of going hungry as an invasive pest wreaks havoc on the staple crop maize. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that seven of the country's eight provinces have been hit by the fall armyworm, and as...

NZ Plans to Kill Every Rat, Feral Cat, and Possum

In the world's 'most ambitious conservation project'

(Newser) - New Zealand could soon be the envy of New York. The country has announced a "world-first" project to exterminate all non-native pests, including possums, stoats, feral cats, and rats by 2050, reports the Guardian . Why? Well, the pests, which the government says cost $2.3 billion per year, also...

Wisconsin's New Scourge: 'Crazy Worms'?

Invasive species has done what locals hoped it wouldn't—survive winter

(Newser) - With 5,000 or so species of earthworms wriggling about the planet, a few are bound to be nastier than the rest. So is the case with Amynthas agrestis, aka the "Asian crazy worm" or "Alabama jumper," an invasive pest found in Japan, Korea, and—for five...

What Makes You Tasty to Mosquitoes?

Pregnancy, blood type, even the clothes on your back

(Newser) - Whether you're one of those people who gets eaten alive by mosquitoes depends on some pretty tangible factors, and Smithsonian Magazine runs down the reasons that make an estimated 20% of us especially delectable to those buzzing little bloodsuckers. Without ado:
  • How much booze you drink: Turns out beer
...

USDA: Time for 'Sea Change' in Fighting Pests

Officials release list of top 15 threats

(Newser) - Pests are causing billions of dollars of agricultural damage—the Asian citrus psyllid alone has cost Florida growers $4.5 billion—and it's time for a "sea change" in how we deal with them. Today, the USDA is releasing its list of the top 15 pest threats, USA ...

30M Locusts Swarm Egypt
 30M Locusts Swarm Egypt 
Mar 4, 2013 7:45 AM CST

30M Locusts Swarm Egypt

Gov't says it has most of outbreak near Cairo under control

(Newser) - Cue the locusts: Some 30 million of the insects descended on Egypt over the weekend, in a development that had the country's agricultural ministry scrambling to deploy insecticide-spraying helicopters to contain the outbreak. The main swarm appears to be centered around Giza, near southern Cairo, where Ynet reports that...

Experts Swarm Bedbug Summit
 Experts Swarm 
 Bedbug Summit 
Sep 22, 2010 5:49 AM CDT

Experts Swarm Bedbug Summit

Leaders in battle against bloodsuckers meet in Chicago

(Newser) - These are boom times in the bedbug control business and dozens of scientists, exterminators, and inventors have flocked to a summit this week on dealing with the resurgent pest. At the first-ever North American Bedbug Summit, being held in a suburban Chicago hotel, dozens of vendors displayed ways to trap,...

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