While aerial spraying of the controversial pesticide Naled cleared Zika carrying mosquitoes from other areas of Miami-Dade County, local transmission of the virus continues in Miami Beach. One local official, as reported by the Miami New Times, has suggested a more "natural" mosquito control effort: bats.
On Wednesday, Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez proposed building bat houses and habitats to help control Miami Beach's mosquito population.
"Naled, a chemical pesticide, is a controversial approach to mosquito eradication and poses health and environmental risks; and ... bats can eat up to 1,000 mosquitos per hour and offer an environmentally friendly approach to mosquito control ... cities around the country, such as North Hempstead, New York, have installed bat houses and habitats to promote an alternate solution to its mosquito problems," reads the proposal.
According to The Washington Post, citing the American Mosquito Control Association, while a colony of 500 bats could consume a quarter million mosquitoes in an hour, moths provide more nutritional value to bats per capture.
On the organization's website, the AMCA says, "There is no question that bats eat mosquitoes, but to utilize them as the sole measure of control would be folly indeed, particularly considering the capacity of both mosquitoes and bats to transmit diseases."
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