It’s no easy feat to remove and control pests. You have a higher chance of successfully managing pest infestations when you are familiar with how pests behave and use it to create more targeted pest control methods.
This article discusses how pest behavior affects pest control, pest control methods that use pest behavior, and the importance of understanding the behavior of pests for general pest control.
How Does Pest Behavior Affect Pest Control?
In the past, people relied on chemicals like insecticides and rodenticides to kill pests, which are harmful to people and the environment. Nowadays, we incorporate pest behavior and vulnerabilities to create successful pest management strategies that don’t harm people and other animals.
Let’s see how different pests behave and how they affect pest control methods:
Ants: Ants live in colonies with social hierarchies. Ant soldiers gather food for the entire colony, and they usually forage in large groups, often communicating through pheromones. To control ant infestations, we set up baits for soldier ants to take food materials mixed with insecticides into their colony.
Cockroaches: Cockroaches are nocturnal, and they seek out dark and humid environments. We can place traps with baits in their usual hiding spots to catch them. However, it’s important to address moisture issues to keep cockroaches away.
Mosquitoes: Mosquitoes are most active in hotter temperatures but lay eggs in stagnant water so they’re most common during the rainy season in the Philippines. Apart from mosquito pest control before the rainy season, it helps to eliminate potential breeding grounds to prevent them from reproducing.
Termites: Termites consume wood and other cellulose materials. Most types of termites need moisture, except for dry termites. Understanding the type of termite and their respective behaviors can inform the termite pest management strategies for your property.
Flies: Flies are attracted to food and food waste. Their life cycle lasts only up to ten days, but they reproduce quickly in warm temperatures. With an understanding of this pest’s behavior, fly pest control involves preventing them from entering properties and removing ideal breeding grounds.
Rodents: Rats are intelligent mammals that can squeeze into small crevices, so it’s challenging to entrap them. Controlling rodents requires monitoring rodent activity to find problematic areas and their nest, before strategically setting baits and traps.
Stored Product Pests: Mites, moths, mealworms, and beetles are usually small and therefore hard to spot. They hide in small cracks and find their way to food or food storage by way of smell. They then feed and breed there. Since they infest food products, stored product pests can only be lured out of their hiding places.
Pest Control Methods Based on Pest Behavior
How can pest behavior inform pest control methods? In this section, we’ll identify and expound further on the pest control methods that are based on pest behavior.
Cultural Control
Using the knowledge of pest behavior, pest control professionals identify and eliminate the conditions that make a property ideal for pest infestation. This may include removing stagnant water, so mosquitoes don’t have a place to lay eggs.
Mechanical Control
This includes setting up the appropriate traps and barriers to prevent pests from entering the premises. An example of this is installing screens on doors and windows and setting up baited traps near a pest’s hiding spot.
Chemical Control
While behavioral pest control methods ideally minimize the use of chemicals, successful integrated pest management requires knowing when pesticides or insecticides are necessary.
Insect Pheromones and Attractants
Pests that rely on pheromones for communication and reproduction such as cockroaches, ants, and termites, can be lured or manipulated using pheromones and attractants. Pheromone pest control allows professionals to trap pests and reduce their population by disrupting mating patterns.
Biological Clock Disruption
This method requires an awareness of the pest’s biological clock, which influences when they are weakest and, therefore, more susceptible to chemical pest control. This allows pesticides to be more effective, thus reducing the amount needed to address the pest infestation.
Behavioral Control
Knowing how pests respond to their environment can inform pest management strategies. For example, we can target a colony of ants or termites by tricking soldiers into taking insecticide-laced bait into their colony as sustenance.
Why It’s Important to Understand Pest Behavior
As you can see, the different types of pests we commonly see in the Philippines behave differently and, because of that, require distinct pest control methods. A strong knowledge of how different pests behave leads to higher success rates of removing and keeping pests away.
Targeted Interventions
Each type of pest behaves differently based on their needs and their environment. They have specific preferences for shelter and food, which can be used to find their hiding places or draw them out. Knowing these habits allows professionals to implement the right methods for the pest and thus, be more successful.
For example, since ants and termites share similar behaviors, we set up baits laced with pesticides for them to take to their colonies. However, ants and termites consume different products so different materials are used to attract them.
Minimized Environmental Impact
Pesticides tend to be harmful to humans, the environment, as well as wildlife. This method indiscriminately targets any animal it comes into contact with.
With behavioral pest control methods, pest control services can address different infestations with less reliance on chemicals, and thus, minimize the impact on the environment.
Cost-Effectiveness
Behavior-based pest control methods don’t focus on removing pests. It identifies the root cause of the infestation and building a strategy to keep them out of the property. They nip the issue in the bud, so you don’t need to rehire pest control services or buy traps regularly.
Thus, understanding pests and their behaviors can help you save money in the long run.
Be Smarter than Pests with ENTECH
Much like people, pests have unique characteristics and respond to their environment. Knowing how pest behavior affects pest control is the key to successfully removing and keeping pests away from your property for good.
ENTECH uses our knowledge of pest behavior to tailor integrated solutions for different types of pest infestations. As an environmental services company, we integrate behavioral pest control strategies and the latest technologies to give our clients long-term protection from pests.
Contact ENTECH today to discuss how you can manage pests in your property or business.
