2021 – A Year of Pests & Pest Control in Review

As 2021 comes to a close, we look at some of the most notable moments in pest control:

 

Angelina Jolie and Honeybees

 

The United Nations has declared May 20^th as ‘World Bee Day’ to celebrate, “honeybees and other pollinators, such as butterflies, bats and hummingbirds, [that] are increasingly under threat from human activities.” Unlike their cousins’ wasps, yellow jackets, and hornets, honeybees are considered exceedingly docile creatures that are fundamental to our ecosystems and, unfortunately, the extinction rates for bees have increased by roughly 100 – 1,000 times their previously normal rate. So, to raise awareness of the holiday in 2021, famed actress Angelia Jolie partnered with National Geographic to do a photoshoot aimed at raising awareness regarding the threat of honeybee extinction.

The photoshoot, captured by photographer Dan Winters, involved Jolie standing still while a swarm of bees covered her body and buzzed around her head. In reflection of the experience, she stated that, “it just felt lovely to be connected to these beautiful creatures. I think part of the thought behind it was, this creature is seen as dangerous sometimes or stinging. So how do we just be with it? I felt very honored and lucky to have the experience.” In addition to the photoshoot, Jolie has taken a leading role in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s new “Women for Bees” program that provides 30-day beekeeping courses for women to promote the conservation of pollinators and other biodiversity.

Australia’s Mouse Plague

 

In New South Wales, Australia, three years of drought was utterly crippling for their agriculture, wildlife, and economy. Luckily, in 2020, the drought finally broke, bringing rain and relief to the farmers and other locals in the area. However, what seemed like a blessing initially, turned into a catalyst for the coming plague.

The new rainy weather had brought abundance to the 2021 Spring and Summer crops… but it also drew populations of mice out from hiding. With such a plethora of crops for these rodents to feast on their population rapidly began to explode, turning into a full-blown plague of the pests. Rural parts of New South Wales, were suddenly overrun by these nasty, destructive pests. “You can be in bed at night and you can actually hear them running around the bedroom… and you hear them rustling as they’re running across the pillow… it’s just unsettling…” described local farmer Lisa Minogue as she cringed. “It has been constant, it hasn’t let up,” added local Brody Roche, “the ground just moves with mice.”

Not only was there a devastating loss of crops with the losses of many farmers ranging from between $30,000 – $50,000, but homes and businesses were utterly destroyed. “We’re back to where we were nearly in the middle of the drought and lost a lot of money and heartache in between,” commented a local farmer. The rodents alsochewed through a tremendous amount of wiring in the area – taking out electricity, ruining appliances such as fridges and microwaves, dismantling cars and other machinery, and even leading to some electrical fires. Along with the financial blows these rodents caused, they also posed a tremendous risk to the health and safety of the locals. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vector-borne diseases such as those passed by rodents are responsible for roughly 17% of all infectious diseases and over a million deaths worldwide each year.

This Australian plague was a huge reminder to the world about how devastating mice infestations can truly be. Wildlife, public health, and pest control organizations across the world waited with bated breath to see how Australia tackles this shocking plague and we are still waiting to see the full outcome of the situation. In reflection, this 2021 plague of rodents will be an important learning opportunity that can help set a precedence for any future rodent plagues that may occur, and may even help us figure out ways to avoid other such infestations altogether.

Bed Bug Boom

 

2021 saw an increase in travel as the strict lockdowns of 2020 began to lift. Unfortunately, with an increase in travel, came an increase in bed bug infestations. These parasitic pests are infamous for hitchhiking from place to place, making public transportation, hotels/motels, and other public places some of the most common places to accidentally pick up these bugs and bring them home.

Cicada Season – A Year of Reprieve

In 2020, after a 17 yearlong “hibernation period” underground, a brood of periodical cicadas known as brood IX emerged in massive numbers, covering much of the Eastern United States including Virginia. If you lived in one of the “hot-spots” during this time, their presence was utterly unavoidable, but the following year was drastically different.

In 2021, the Eastern states of the U.S. had a reprieve from the loud bugs as the periodical brood was once again in hibernation and only annual cicadas emerged in their smaller populations. However, that’s not to say that no periodical cicadas had an appearance during the year. Another brood known as brood X emerged across the middle of the U.S. spreading through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and more. So while it wasn’t a year without cicadas, 2021 was still a year of reprieve in Virginia from the previous year’s cicada explosion.

Lower Rates of Tick Bites

According to the CDC, the cases of reported tick bites in 2021 came in at a total of 2,209, which was a clear decrease compared to the average cases in the United States between 2017 and 2019. While there was an overall decrease in cases, the data still followed the same trends of the following years with cases spiking in the Spring and another mini spike in Autumn around September and October. The largest spike of the year was the week of May 31^st through June 6^th with a total of 116 reported cases. While the weeks of January 18^th through January 24th and February 15^th through February 21^st, were tied as the weeks with the lowest rate of bites only recording 4 bites each week.

Pest Control, NOT Pet Control

On May 25^th, 2021 in the Centennial Hills area of Las Vegas, Nevada, a ring camera captured video of a pest control salesman kicking a cat. In the aftermath of the video going viral, the sick, animal abuser was identified as a sales representative of a local pest control company called Williams Pest Control. Royce Williams, the owner of the company soon went on the local news condemning the actions of the man in the video and confirming that he is no longer employed with them due to his despicable actions.

While the incident was both unsettling and disturbing, thankfully, the cat is okay, it’s a solitary incident, and you can rest assured that your local Green Pest Services takes the care and safety of the pets in our community very seriously. We support and care for all our customers and community members who are pet owners and pet lovers!

Praying Mantis Gone Viral

In the last few weeks of October 2021, a funny video of a praying mantis went viral briefly. The video depicted a welding machine working away on some job while a praying mantis stands before it, sizing up the machine and engaging in a fighting stance. As sparks fly from the apparatus, the mantis strikes at them aggressively and advances toward the welder. Moments later, a large stream of sparks shoots straight at the mantis. Though it seems like he disappears from being shot back from the sparks, he appears suddenly clinging to the side of the welder. Upon closer inspection, he can be seen leaping with shocking speed to avoid the sparks. The mantis soon jumps down from the welder and seems to abandon his assault, slowly walking away.

This shocking interaction was met by both awe and great amusement as people were dumbfounded by the bold actions of the praying mantis.

Citations

Bees and Wasps (no date) Illinois Department of Public Health. Available at: https://www.dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/environmental-health-protection/structural-pest-control/bees-wasps (Accessed: May 21, 2021).

Brisco, E. (2021) Angelina Jolie is covered in bees and calls it ‘lovely’: See the photo, USA Today. Available at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/05/20/angelina-jolie-poses-bunch-buzzing-bees-world-bee-day/5180907001/ (Accessed: May 21, 2021).

Brood X cicadas map: Where you will find them in 2021 (2021) The Enquirer. USA Today Network. Available at: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/05/06/brood-x-cicadas-map-what-states/4946803001/ (Accessed: May 18, 2021).

Brown, W. (2014) Insect of the Month: Cicadas, Texas A&M University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences – Department of Entomology. Available at: https://entomology.tamu.edu/2014/06/24/insect-of-the-month-cicadas/ (Accessed: October 2020).

Cicada (2017) Amateur Entomologists’ Society . Available at: https://www.amentsoc.org/insects/glossary/terms/cicada (Accessed: October 2020EPA Actions to Protect Pollinators (2021) EPA. Environmental Protection Agency. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/epa-actions-protect-pollinators (Accessed: May 21, 2021).

Health Hazards Posed by Rodents (2014) Pest World. National Pest Management Association. Available at: https://www.pestworld.org/news-hub/pest-health-hub/health-hazards-posed-by-rodents/ (Accessed: June 2020).

Jaramillo, S. (2021) Pest control company receives death threats after video of worker kicking cat goes viral, Fox 59. Available at: https://fox59.com/news/national-world/pest-control-company-receives-death-threats-after-video-of-worker-kicking-cat-goes-viral/ (Accessed: June 17, 2021).

Lakshmanan, I. (2021) Angelina Jolie embraces bees-and female beekeepers as environmental guardians, National Geographic. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/bee-conservation-women-entrepreneurs-angelina-jolie (Accessed: May 21, 2021).

Levy, M. (2020) Cicadas Are Delightful Weirdos You Should Learn to Love, Smithsonian Magazine. The Smithsonian Institute. Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-are-cicadas-180975009/ (Accessed: October 2020).

Mouse plague deals fresh blow to Australian farmers (2021) BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-57225103 (Accessed: May 26, 2021).

Myatt, K. and Klein-Davis, S. (2021) 17-year cicadas: Not our problem this time, Roanoke Times. Available at: https://roanoke.com/news/local/17-year-cicadas-not-our-problem-this-time/article_8ef94bb0-b4bb-11eb-bcdc-1374a7b824c5.html (Accessed: May 18, 2021).

National Geographic Staff (2019) Cicadas, National Geographic. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/group/cicadas/ (Accessed: October 2020).

Neumann, L. (2021) ‘This is evil’: Video catches salesman kicking cat off person’s porch, The Daily Dot. Available at: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/salesman-kicks-cat-video/ (Accessed: June 17, 2021).

Orchard Cicada (no date) Washington State University Department of Entomology. Available at: https://entomology.wsu.edu/outreach/bug-info/cicada/ (Accessed: October 2020).

Praying Mantis Fights An Industrial Welding Machine (2021) YouTube. Salty Guppy. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyilAEkWg_M (Accessed: October 11, 2021).

Rodents (2010) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases and the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/rodents/index.html (Accessed: January 27, 2021).

Rogers, J. (2020) Get Set for the Return of Cicadas and Their ‘Alien-like Wail’ After 17 Years Underground, Fox News. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/science/return-cicadas-alien-like-wail-after-17-years-underground (Accessed: July 2020).

Roos, D. (2013) Should Farmers & Gardeners Worry About 17-Year Cicadas?, North Carolina State University. Available at: go.ncsu.edu/readext?212433 (Accessed: July 2020).

Tick bites by week and Month (2021) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/tickedvisits/tick-bite-by-week-month.html (Accessed: January 3, 2022).

Vector-borne diseases (2020) World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/vector-borne-diseases (Accessed: April 30, 2021).

Watson, A. and Devitt, P. (2021) Australia plans to end its mouse plague with poison, CNN. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/20/australia/australia-mouse-plague-dst-intl-hnk/index.html (Accessed: May 26, 2021).

World Bee Day (no date) United Nations. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/observances/bee-day (Accessed: May 21, 2021).