Wildlife Friendly Pest Control

90% of the US population of monarch butterflies is gone. And that is just the tip of the iceberg! Insect biomass, Including pollinators, is down globally up to 80%, according to some estimates. The key to pest control is to work WITH Nature when possible, and to use a pistol (or even tweezers) rather than a machine gun (or sledgehammer) when controlling pests.

Most insects, for example, are beneficial or at least harmless. Most pest control companies use broad spectrum chemicals, often pyrethroids, which are in fact degradable. However, they pretty much kill everything, good or bad, when applied. So here are some tips! And note that any product endorsements are strictly my own (but if you manufacture any of the things I mention and want to compensate me, I would probably allow that!) and I am not guaranteeing that my suggested solutions will work. (And if you do manage get yourself bit or stung, please don’t blame me!)

The Top 10 suggestions (See the photo and caption at the end of this page for the absolute BEST way to keep critters out of your house!)

1. Don’t poison your entire yard. Rather, identify the Problem Critters and deal with them individually. Hand- picking pests off your plants is the single best way to deal with them. But if you prefer to use chemicals, products that contain spinosad, Bti, or iron phosphate are often quite effective, yet virtually harmless to non-targeted species. Likewise, pull weeds by hand or use products that contain 20 or 30% vinegar or ammonium nonanoate as their active ingredient. A lot of the chemicals out there are forms of pyrethroids, neonicitinoids, or glyphosphates; these and many other should be avoided.

2. Don’t kill beneficial insects, spiders, etc. Many times, if you are patient, they will do the pest control job for you for, or at least help, for free (if you don’t poison them first).
Here is the link to a fact sheet put up out by the city of Austin that provides a wealth of information on numbers one and two, above.
https://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Watershed/growgreen/factsheets/beneficials.pdf

​3. Ants (other than fire ants)
​most species of ants are native and quite beneficial as decomposers. However, you may not feel this way if they get into your house or overrun your birdfeeder. Baits are far preferable to “broadcast and hope you kill the right thing” poisons. Many ant species go through periods when they are looking for protein, and other periods when they’re looking for sugar. A product that is fairly safe (the active ingredients is borax) and which works on sugar-seekers (which are most species most times), is called Terro. When Terro doesn’t work, I recommend a protein-based granular bait like Advance 375A. Terro is easy to find at most hardware stores, but both products can be ordered from Amazon.

4. Fire ants
There are native species of fire ants, but the one that gives most of us headaches and occasionally causes us to do the “fire ant dance” is the Red Imported Fire Ant. There are a lot of products out there, and for some purist folks I know I’m stepping out on a limb a bit, but I think good old Amdro is a best choice. It’s a targeted bait and you don’t need to use much, so I don’t think it hurts other wildlife. But you have to use it exactly as specified on the container. In the organic garden, you can use a product that contains Spinosad called Come and Get It. And if you have pets in your yard, I have found that a very effective means of destroying ant colonies is to simply boil a large kettle of water and pour it down the hole!

5. Mosquitoes
Commonly, if mosquitoes are an issue in your yard it’s because there is standing, stagnant water somewhere nearby. Products I love are called Mosquito Bits and Mosquito Dunks, which contain Bti and are virtually harmless to other critters, including humans. Put one or the other every few weeks whatever worry cumulates, including bird baths, water barrels, flower pot bottoms, rain gutters, pooled air conditioner water, non-functioning drains, etc. of course, sometimes you just have to wear DEET, about which I will say two things; it’s really the only affordable product that actually works, and it’s been tested a very very long time and it seems to be harmless (even though it’s amazing counterintuitive since it will dissolve plastic!) and just for fun, I use one of those electric tennis racket mosquito swatters. If you have a patio fan, run it on high and the wind and air pressure will keep biters off you. I abhor those UV bug zappers that kill nearly everything, but the newer ones that are more selective are not quite as bad. Pretty much the only critters that eat mosquitoes are dragonflies and damselflies, which are very sensitive to pesticides. Don’t spray, especially in your water! And by the way, it seems counterintuitive, but if you have running water or a water feature you might have damselflies and dragonflies, and you definitely won’t have mosquitoes!
Newsflash! I recently purchased a device on Amazon called Biogents. It’s specifically targets tiger mosquitoes which are the ones that carry most of the diseases and which of the most common ones in Sun City. There is no poison involved and it is 100% targeted just for mosquitoes. You put in a packet that mimics the particular scents that those species of mosquitoes like, plug it in, and it sucks them right in and dries them out until their mummified. Not cheap, and it won’t protect your whole yard, but it’s great for the areas that you use a lot and it’s made a huge difference for me!
Newsflash: I just learned about a backyard mosquito repellent product called Thermacell. I just ordered one. Watch this space for my review!

6. Wasps
I should add armadillos and beetle grubs to this one. If you don’t want armadillos digging up your yard, not to mention the beetle grubs they are foraging for, then don’t kill wasps! Many people call any yellowish wasp they see a yellow jacket, which isn’t accurate. I will destroy yellow jacket colonies, which are in the ground. Also, if paper wasps are in a shrub or tree in my yard, I will go out with a flashlight at night and knock the nest out with a broom. Haven’t been stung yet! Paper wasps, mud daubers and those big cicada killers almost never sting humans. Many bees and wasps can’t sting at all, and most species will ignore humans unless provoked. However, most wasps are eating caterpillars, beetle grubs, flies, or each other.

7. Spiders and scorpions
Most spiders are harmless. Even those that contain venom can rarely break human skin. Most skin irritations that people attribute to spider bites are actually from mosquitoes, chiggers, fire ants, or plant allergies, etc. Any spider in your garden that’s out in the open, for example the big ones that make those “Charlotte” webs, are harmless to humans and highly beneficial. Black widows have mostly been replaced by brown widows now. Brown widows almost never bite humans and you probably have them in your lawn furniture. Brown and black widows and brown recluse spiders are the only ones I ever kill, and then only if they are in the yard.

Likewise, scorpions are beneficial. They love to eat roaches! A line of boric acid or other powder next to the foundation is often enough to keep spiders and scorpions out of your house. That I have a plastic cup and a sheet of thin cardboard I use to put any wayward spiders that get into my house back in the garden. Whatever you do, don’t spray a pyrethroid or other toxin all over your yard!

8. Snakes and other reptiles
I think the main reason so many people hate snakes is because at an early age they were taught to do so, even if they don’t remember that lesson. This is so unfortunate! The best way to encourage rattlesnakes to come into your yard is to capture or kill the other snakes that are there. I’m not crazy about rat snakes because they get into the birdfeeders, but I try to outsmart them rather than destroy these beautiful creatures, Who, like all other snakes, generally prey on critters that we probably don’t want in our yards anyway. Check online or buy the folded plastic snake guide at H-E-B and learn how to distinguish rattlesnakes from all the others. If it is a rattlesnake, or if you just insist that NO SNAKE SHALL EXIST on your ground space, call the snake wranglers or shoo it away with a broom.

9. Snails and slugs
Products like Sluggo that contain iron phosphate or sulfur (instead of metaldehyde or other anticoagulants, which kill all sorts of non-targeted animals in a cruel and painful way) are readily available now everywhere. Read the label! Iron phosphate has the added bonus of breaking down to become an iron supplement in your soil. And if you go around your yard right after a rain, you can handpick and step on many of the snails in your yard without using any poison at all. But please don’t toss snails into the street, or pour salt on them!

10. Deer
Click HERE

Got Mosquitoes? This is kind of long, but I get so many questions about mosquitoes, I thought I would put this out as a public service.

No, the critters pictured above are actually your absolute best friends if you DON’T LIKE mosquitoes; damselflies. Smaller and more delicate than their cousins the dragonflies, both groups are by far the most effective mosquito predators there are.

If you use ANY kind of spray system in your yard, you will kill these guys and the mosquitoes will return even faster. And if you use one of those “bug zappers”, stop! They kill far more beneficial insects than mosquitoes. Birds and other wildlife are suffering severely from the loss of food, which for many consists of flying insects, mostly pollinators, and bug zappers are a big cause of this! Read on to find ways to control mosquitoes without using expensive pest services that kill or at least harm nearly every living animal in your yard, while creating an expensive addiction to their continued use.

Having a healthy pond with dragonflies and damselflies, maybe also mosquito fish, is the best way to prevent mosquitoes! But that may not be practical for most of us.

Most of our mosquitoes are breeding in  stagnant water that we’re not even aware is present. Particularly in places like backed up French drains or the housings for utility boxes. But also under flower pots that are in water trays, where the air conditioner drips water out of your house, oh and did I say French drains? Especially in older houses, you may not even be aware of these in your yard!

There is a product called Mosquito Bits that contain BTI, a bacterial derivative that is targeted only to kill mosquito larvae. You can put it in birdbaths, water barrels, and of course all the other things I mentioned previously. Add a handful once a month and we can make a huge difference. I order it on Amazon.

Do mosquitoes carry disease? Yes. There was one HUMAN  case of West Nile in Williamson County in 2022, and that’s the only recent one I’m aware of. The mosquitoes that carry malaria, for example, don’t even occur here.

Nevertheless, mosquitoes are a particular nuisance to people (apparently including me) who produce higher concentrations of carboxylic acids in their skin. Sorry – this is probably genetic, and there’s not much those of us (like me) who seem to be the first ones  in the crowd to get attacked, can do about it, except wear repellents. I believe the most truly effective one is DEET. Yes, it melts plastic, but years and years of studies have never shown any deleterious effect on humans. Most of the herbal or “natural” stuff works for only short periods, if at all. (believe it or not, America Beautyberry is actually showing some promise as a repellent. Mosquitoes hate bright things, so wearing a white shirt helps!

Finally, if you’ve read this far, I’ll tell you about the system I have at my house. It doesn’t kill all the mosquitoes but it targets and traps them, literally by the hundreds and even thousands. It is called a biogents device. You put a packet in it containing simulated human scent and you run it all the time. It’s like a vacuum cleaner that only catches mosquitoes. I’ve gone an extra mile and attached a CO2 tank to it since carbon dioxide also attracts mosquitoes, and I can literally see thousands of desiccated mosquitoes each time I check the inside trap net. As you will see in the video below.