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I like chocolate. Specifically dark chocolate, but I’m not turning away the semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies or the milk chocolate morsels in a good brownie. A candy bar or a filled chocolate candy will do just fine. Open a bag and I’ll be there. The closer it is, the faster I am going to find it and eat it, probably a lot of it given the chance! If I have to go to the store and buy it, or spend a few hours cooking it, obviously it’s going to take me longer to get to it and

When most people hear the word "plague," they immediately picture medieval Europe, wooden carts, and plague doctors in bird masks. It feels like an ancient historical artifact. The plague is still very much active today. Yersinia pestis (the bacterium that causes plague) has been quietly circulating in the wildlife of the American West for decades. A recent announcement from the New Mexico Department of Health: a wild rodent in Santa Fe County officially tested positive for

It just hit the news – Hantavirus is typically spread through the feces and urine of rodents. There has been mention of human-to-human transmission, but according to a 2022 paper reviewing that claim, “The balance of the evidence does not support the claim of human-to-human transmission.” It’s important to remember that Hantavirus is not a “flu-like symptoms” sickness. It can be, and in this case is, a lethal disease. Sure, it starts with flu-like symptoms but progresses qu

I have a lot of Google alerts for words relating to pest control. I typically skim through, look for any scientific articles and quickly delete. Then this one caught my eye. Ugh, here we go again, I think to myself. And yes, here we go again. Now, I get it. Pesticides are scary, especially when you call them “poisons”. Yes, they are intended to knock down the pest. Yes, some are poisonous (ingested). Yes, we want to make sure only the target animal is impacted by the pesti

I was giving a webinar on rodents last week and someone asked a brilliant question: what can you do when the pest problem is coming from...

I’m probably going to get some pushback from this, but I don’t like birds. I admit that birds of prey, like raptors and owls, are very...

I am an entomologist by training and certification, but I really enjoy talking about rodents. As someone in the pest control field, I’m...

I posted a few days ago about a record setting fine leveled against a company due to violating food safety laws. There were numerous...

You know with a headline like this I absolutely have to find out what’s going on: And since it is 100% effective, pest control companies...

There it is, you are the problem. While I do agree, there are some problems with this. Pests have been associated with humans for...

We talk about how important it is to control rodents. They eat our foods and contaminate what’s left. They damage our structures and chew...

For all those that regularly follow me, you know that my blogs are often about situations I have been in, articles that have recently hit...