A friendly reminder

by 49 replies
55
Before you start, I know humans are the biggest killers.
This isn't about that, it's about preparing for summer.
If you don't have a sense of humor or you want to talk about how bad humans are, start your own thread, they're cheap and easy to do.

Average human kills!!!
#10: Great White shark- 1 death/yr.,
#9: Salt water croc-20+ deaths/yr.,
#8: Box jelly fish- 20-40 deaths/yr.,
#7: African lion-70/yr,
#6: Tiger- 40-100/yr.,
#5: Cape buffalo- 200/yr.,
#4: Hippo- 200-300/yr.,
#3: African elephant- 500/yr.,
#2: Asian cobra- 4000/yr.,
#1: mosquito 2,000,000 each yr.
It seems (to me) "WE" should work on those little fu(#er$ first!!!
I haven't come across ANY of the others in my whole life, except in controlled environments.
Wear your bug repellent & carry a 44 mag., just in case.
#off topic forum
  • When I first read the title I thought this was going to be a weed thread....

    FRIEDLY?

    LOL....
    • [1] reply
    • OOps I'll have to change that:rolleyes:
  • On a serious note, sports writer Rick Reilly has a project called "Nothing But Nets" where people donate $10 and it buys a kid a mosquito net. This is one of the most cost-effective health care tools around.

    Nets Save Lives | Nothing But Nets Campaign
    • [1] reply
    • ACTUALLY, for what ONE net costs, you could get special doughnut like things to KILL mosquitoes.

      If you make all stagnent water inhospitable to them, msoquitoes will be ERADICATED within 1-20 MILES! It is cheaper, easier, more reliable, and more comfortable. AND, if a given area is cleared, it will take some time for new mosquitoes to acquire the disease to be spread. so even a MODERATE success at eradication could be a 100% success at getting rid of disease.

      Steve
      • [1] reply
  • Thom, you left out a couple of real winners - E. coli and e. histolytica...

    The little nasties that cause food poisoning and dysentery, respectively.

    So keep your picnic lunch cold and if you aren't sure about the source, don't drink the water...
    • [2] replies
    • Kurt I knew about that, but thank you for posting it.
      Steve those are mosquito dunks. the active ingredient is Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis, they eat the mosquito larva.
      The only problem with that is it is almost impossible to find and treat every water source the mosquito's can breed in, they don't need much.
      As a side note if you have a problem with fungus gnats on your indoor plants, you can treat the soil with the dunks. Use about 1/4 one per gallon of water. I haven't found an amount that is harmful to the soil or plants and don't think there is. Also if you're having a gnat problem , quit using Miracle Grow potting soil, that's where they came from
      • [1] reply
    • Calcium rich foods -- the reason some of this crap overwhelms our systems is because our normal digestive acid isn't strong enough to kill them. Calcium is hard to digest and will trigger more acid production, that incidentally kills more bacteria.

      But, yeah - avoiding it is a pretty good idea to start with. LOL.
  • I'm not sure the original list is totally accurate...There's about 25-deaths each year in the US by dogs. The best estimates I can get on horses is there are anywhere from 100-1000 deaths a year in the US caused by horses. Bees kill about 50 people a year in the US. I "think" a few hundred people die every year in the US from collisions involving deer.
  • The two million skeeter deaths are from malaria and occur in Africa, South America and south Asia. There is no way in hell a mosquito dunk will have any effect at all in rain forests. Those nets save lives.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Yeah, in forests they won't, you're right about THAT. I guess I was thinking about the areas that aren't so green. Kind of like florida has places where it would be impractical, and a number of deserts in california COULD have it work well.

      Where I live now, there are relatively few places mosquitoes could breed, and they could be removed, managed, or use that bacteria.

      steve
  • Well, with some of the stuff written lately, maybe we should have carpenter ants or termites!
    • [1] reply
    • RE: the photo

      It is intricate
      It is symmetrical
      It is not cute
  • I have what the army corps of engineers call a 'creek' in my back yard. I call it a ditch, and except when it rains there is no moving water.

    So I put up 2 bat houses back there to take care of the swarms we would get.

    Of course the next year we had an unprecedented number of rapid bats and other small mammals reported.
    • [2] replies
    • So the bat houses attracted bats?
      Just curious because I was thinking of building a couple in my yard.
      • [1] reply
    • I don't know if it is possible, but if you could attract only insect eating bats, that problem probably wouldn't occur. WOW though, the bat houses must have been big.

      and the army corps of engineers came to it, defined it, and didn't do anything with it?

      Steve
      • [1] reply
  • Did you have any bacon in your pocket?... I know i carry bacon around on my persons and dogs are my number one hazard.

    I could stop carrying bacon around but then isn't that what america is all about?

    What i do now is throw a peace of steak in the dryer with i wash my socks, So when they attack me, they go for my foot and not my neck.
  • Hey Thom - any natural cure for fricking aphids? The minute I get my first leaf on one of my roses they start. I hate them - they just irritate me so much I am tongue tied and they are the only thing I use insecticide on -

    I hate using insecticide because I have darling bees and humming birds that come to my deck, but I just can't control myself from watching the aphids stop all their freaking wiggling when they are sprayed head on.

    I have something to trade - a natural remedy for rose powdery mildew that works great. Murphys Oil Soap (2 capfuls) to a quart of camomile tea. Spray it both before you get mildew and/or after you get mildew.
    • [3] replies
    • Hey Pat...

      If worse comes to worse, you might try insecticidal soap. It's a poison, but it totally breaks down naturally from light, air and moisture in 3 days so it doesn't stay around to harm things. It works, it's cheap and you can pick it up at any lawn/garden center.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • I tried to find a decent link to this, but I kept on finding sales pages
      Safer Insecticidal Soap should take care of your aphid problem.
      That's usually the first thing I try for many insect on plant problems.
      Something else you can try that works is Ladybugs.

      I just wanted to add, I'm that way with slugs.
      I should go organic, but with the slug bait I use it turns them into soap, and I find that very pleasing:rolleyes: I also like going out to the driveway in the early morning with some salt and watching them dance.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • Edit: Oops, Thom beat me to it.

      The soap Kurt mentions works. You can also use ladybugs. I bought them before and let them go around where ever the aphids are. Some of them fly away, but many stay around and eat the aphids.

      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Yes Lady Bugs rock alright. But they don't stay around it is true - I have several roses and I would need a Lady Bug Army.

    I can't believe I didn't know about Safer Insecticidal soap. I will definitely get some. Thank you guys...
    • [2] replies
    • Most will stay as long as there is food then leave in search of more.
      Of course at that point you don't have any aphids left.
      They will also lay eggs where their food source is.
      Only problem is most people don't recognize ladybug larva and end up trying to kill them.


      Same goes with the eggs.
      People see them on their plants and squash them or get rid of them somehow.
    • Safer products are great - and they work!

      Steve - Maybe the poor chained dog thought you were coming to save it - and when you just walked past, it ticked him off?
  • ThiomM,

    YEAH, that is a problem. Ever see Praying mantis egg sacks? You start wondering what they are. I bought a couple once, and kept them in my BEDROOM! When I came home one day, it looked like there were ANTS all over my dresser. Well, the color didn't look QUITE right. I looked closely, and THERE THEY WERE! Little baby praying mantises! They were probably about as long as their eyes were when they were adults. TINY, but they looked every bit like adults would if they were kind of tan and MUCH smaller.

    I guess you just have to be careful sometimes. and yeah, ladybugs can look bad, often climb walls and pupate. I could see someone killing them all thinking they were some kind of pest.

    Steve
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  • Gross I HATE monsquitos.. They disgust me
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  • 55

    A friendly reminder

    Before you start, I know humans are the biggest killers. This isn't about that, it's about preparing for summer. If you don't have a sense of humor or you want to talk about how bad humans are, start your own thread, they're cheap and easy to do.