Pest Control Vancouver BC aims to prevent or reduce the presence of pests in human environments. This can be done by using physical barriers, heat killing (for storage pests), flooding, or chemical sprays.
Pesticides can also be used to destroy existing pest populations, but this approach is usually only effective when accompanied by other methods. These other methods include improving sanitary and structural conditions to deny pests food, water, and shelter; and releasing natural enemies.
Insects are invertebrates (they don’t have a backbone) with six legs and hard outer casings called exoskeletons. Most insects obtain food by eating the cell contents or sap of their host plants. Insects include bees, flies, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, beetles, wasps, grasshoppers, and crickets. Some, like dung beetles, reduce methane emissions from cattle feedlots and other animal waste, aerate the soil, and spread crop seeds. Others, like praying mantises and some thrips, prey on other pest insects.
Because they directly eat their hosts, many predatory insects and insect-like animals are natural pest control agents. Birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals also help regulate pest populations by feeding on them. Other organisms such as viruses, nematodes, bacteria, and fungi can indirectly influence pest numbers by interfering with their growth or life cycle or by killing them.
Physical control methods include removing damaged or diseased plant parts, spraying them with water or another liquid, or applying mulch or other physical barriers to exclude pests. Chemical control involves using herbicides, insecticides, or fungicides to kill or suppress pests. Pesticides may be broad-spectrum or narrow-spectrum and can be organic or inorganic. They can also be systemic or non-systemic and can act directly on pests or through more indirect means such as releasing hormone-like chemicals that interfere with their breeding and mating behavior, acting as nerve toxins, or altering the structure of an insect’s wing.
Eradication is rare for outdoor pests and even more difficult in enclosed environments. However, preventive and suppression strategies are much more common goals.
A good pest management strategy begins with assessing whether a damaging population of the target organism is present or expected to be present, and weighing that against the cost of controlling it. For example, if spraying cabbage worms costs $15 in labor and materials to control them, the action is justified only if the value of the heads of the cabbage crop saved outweighs the $15 expense. To assist growers with this process, the Experiment Station offers the Economic Injury Level (EIL) and Aesthetic Injury Level (AIL) standards.
Rodents
Rodent infestations are a major problem in commercial settings, presenting food safety and health risks. They can contaminate products with droppings and urine, chew through electrical wiring or plumbing, and spread pathogens that cause disease in humans and animals. In addition, their presence can trigger allergies and asthma in sensitive individuals. These issues, along with their destructive nature, make rodent control a critical aspect of pest management.
Rodents can invade buildings in search of food, water, and shelter. To prevent them from entering, regularly inspect a building for signs of rodent activity, such as scratching sounds, drop marks, and rub marks (use a black light to identify urine).
Regularly clean and declutter spaces where rats or mice might find food or shelter. Keep all food in rodent-proof containers and keep trash receptacles tightly sealed. Ensure that door sweeps and gaps are closed around pipes and utilities, and remove piles of cardboard boxes or other potential hiding spots.
Rodents enter through surprisingly small openings. Their bodies are made mostly of cartilage, and they can squeeze through spaces as small as a dime. Conduct regular inspections for signs of rodent entry points, including the corners of rooms, behind appliances, in floor air vents, and around utility lines.
Despite their small size, rodents are capable of significant structural damage in the building. They can chew through wood, wires and plastic, which threatens building integrity and leads to costly repair bills. In addition, their gnawing can cause fire hazards and lead to water damage from plumbing leaks.
Rats and mice carry a variety of diseases that are harmful to humans and animals. Some of these are transmitted through direct contact with their droppings, saliva, and nesting materials, while others are spread through inhalation or ingestion of contaminated food.
Commercial settings are particularly susceptible to rodents, as they are often busy and unattended. A well-integrated pest control plan that includes sanitation, exclusion, and lethal control can help reduce rodent populations and minimize their damaging effects on a business. The most effective way to reduce rodent problems is to work with a professional pest control provider that can customize an Integrated Pest Management program for your business.
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are well known as nuisance pests, but they can also cause serious health problems. They spread malaria, dengue, yellow fever and filariasis, as well as some encephalitis viruses (St. Louis encephalitis, LaCrosse encephalitis, West Nile virus and Eastern Equine encephalitis) that can infect humans and animals. The genus Aedes is the main mosquito implicated in these zoonotic diseases, but other mosquito species, such as Coquillettidia and Culiseta, are also responsible. These species have different ecologies, and are able to transmit disease to humans at rates that vary widely.
A common approach to control mosquitoes focuses on eliminating their breeding habitats and treating these watery habitats with larvicides that interrupt their life cycle or kill immature stages. Such preventive measures are generally effective in reducing mosquito populations, but the frequent use of many different classes of pesticides has resulted in resistance.
As a consequence, scientists are exploring new control techniques that rely on knowledge of a mosquito’s biology and behaviour to trap or otherwise inhibit the vector. These include autodissemination traps that exploit the cryptic oviposition behaviour of mosquitoes, and sugar-insecticide baits that target the feeding behaviour of adult mosquitoes.
In addition, genetic engineering is providing methods for producing sterile mosquitoes that cannot lay fertilized eggs (Qsim et al. 2017). This sterile insect technology, which has been developed through several approaches, can be used to suppress mosquito populations without the need for insecticide spraying.
Mosquito control requires a combination of routine surveillance and monitoring of mosquito breeding activity, disease cases in humans and potential animal hosts. As the number of mosquitoes and their potential to carry disease increases, entomologists must continue to improve their ability to identify new species. This includes developing better microscopic equipment and reviewing samples from previous generations to determine whether there are measurable differences in identifying characteristics. Recently, such a review led to the elevation of a subgenus of Aedes mosquitoes (Ochlerotatus) to genus status, requiring changes in the names of several commonly encountered mosquitoes. These taxonomic changes will have important implications for mosquito control in the future.
Fungi
Fungi are nonvascular organisms that reproduce by producing spores, which are dispersed in air and water through wind or insects (in some species) for further propagation. Fungi are found in the phyla Basidiomycota, Chytridiomycota, Entomophthoromycota and Ascomycota.
Fungal biological control agents are used in integrated pest management (IPM) programs to kill or disable arthropod pests without harming beneficial insects, pollinators and other ecosystem components. They also pose fewer environmental concerns than chemical insecticides.
There are over 750 species of fungi that infect and parasitize arthropods. Among these, about 20 are used as biological controls in crop production. The entomopathogenic fungi are the most common of these. These fungi infect and paralyze the insect, killing it by direct penetration or by depriving it of essential nutrients. Most of these fungi are used against plant-parasitic nematodes and fungal plant pathogens. Examples include Beauveria bassiana, Cordyceps fumorosea, Akanthomyces muscarius, Metarhizium anisopliae, and the Hypocreales (including M. robertsii and M. brunneum).
Infection by entomopathogenic fungi begins with the germination of spores on the host cuticle. The fungi penetrate through the insect integument, wounds or trachea. The fungi then colonize the hemolymph and attempt to overcome host immune reactions by secreting enzymes such as proteases, chitinases, quinobiases and upases. The infection process can be accelerated by injecting the fungi into the insect with a special needle.
A fungal product is most effective when it is applied to target pests at a stage in their life cycle where the spores can penetrate. This usually means when the insect is young or immature. Infection usually results in insect death, but high concentrations of spores are needed to achieve this. High temperatures, low humidity and other environmental conditions can decrease a fungus’s efficacy.
To increase the effectiveness of fungi as biocontrol agents, they are often combined with botanicals or semiochemicals that attract, repel or confuse the pest. These compounds may be incorporated into sprays, baits or other application forms. They can also enhance the fungi’s ability to infect the target pest, increasing the efficiency of the fungus as an alternative to chemical pesticides.