Spraying has consequences

Dear Editor,

Regarding Erik Gantt’s article about the impacts of mosquito spraying in the Saratoga area: The article claimed that mosquito spraying doesn’t harm any other creatures, while citing studies that sound to me shockingly inadequate to prove any such assumption. In particular, I can’t let the near-demise of the nighthawk in this valley go unquestioned.

In the 1960s when I was growing up out in the countryside near Saratoga, my family and I would climb to the top of a ridge on summer evenings to witness a spectacular event. From every direction nighthawks would come until the sky seemed filled with them. Above us they converged, swirling and swooping, sending their rough cries echoing among the ravines. Excitement built with their numbers until they began to spiral higher and higher and, one by one, close their wings and hurtle toward earth. Just when it seemed the diving bird was about to smack into a boulder, tree, or the top of my head, it opened its wings and with a roar of wind through feathers zoomed skyward again. While the sun slowly sank, we craned our necks to watch the great swarm of nighthawks as one and then another and another performed its death-defying dive.

It’s true that we had to fend off swarms of mosquitoes at the same time. In those days the pests weren’t known to carry deadly diseases in this area, so we considered the stinky repellent and our swatting-dance with the insects a small price to pay for the thrill of watching the nighthawks in their hundreds.

Of all the experiences of my childhood that are no more, this is one that I sorely miss, and my heart aches for my grandkids who will probably never witness it. Seeing one or two nighthawks of an evening is not the same thing at all.

I’m not a bird expert, and don’t pretend to know how much of the drastic decline in the nighthawk population here is a result of local mosquito spraying, or what other environmental changes throughout the birds’ range might also be at work. My point is, does anybody know? By assuming that what we humans do has little or no impact on the world, we could be unknowingly causing irreparable harm not only to other creatures but to our own quality of life. When addressing serious dangers such as the West Nile virus (which, after all, is also deadly to birds), we should be sure of what we’re doing. I hope we can seek methods that won’t come at such a terrible cost as the loss of our once-great splendors of the nighthawk.

Thank you,

Dawn Senior-Trask

Encampment

 

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