The hotter it gets from climate change, the more hospitable it is for mosquitoes. They're more than just annoying though, leaving you with itchy skin -- they carry diseases like West Nile virus. Your best defense? Bats. Thus Essential Skill # 44 in The Live Earth Global Warming Handbook:
Build a bat house.
"Our maligned friends like nothing more than to swoop down and enjoy a disease-vectory snack," writes Handbook author David de Rothschild. "Little brown and big brown bats, the most common in North America, can catch up to 1,200 insects an hour."
If building a bat house to invite bats to your neighborhood sounds a little extreme, consider this: you probably already have them. "Except for in polar regions," writes de Rothschild, "they live almost everywhere."
You can buy a bat house or build one yourself. Just remember to install it 15 feet off the ground at least 100 yards away from the house. So if you live in a neighborhood where the houses are less than 100 yards apart, hold off until you get that second home out of the city.
Click this link to learn more about housing bats in your backyard.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
No bat houses anytime soon for us. We're in a crowded neighborhood where installing a bat house 100 yards away from our house would mean putting it right next to someone else's.
Post a Comment