Letter to the editor: Don’t get panicked into spraying for moths

Yarmouth is considering aerial spraying for browntail moths. In May 2018, our neighborhood in Falmouth was sprayed, and millions of dead browntail moth caterpillars covered the ground, thus eliminating the infestation. This past spring, our neighborhood contracted and paid in advance for a similar application. This was partly as a result of dire predictions by […]

Yarmouth is considering aerial spraying for browntail moths.

In May 2018, our neighborhood in Falmouth was sprayed, and millions of dead browntail moth caterpillars covered the ground, thus eliminating the infestation.

This past spring, our neighborhood contracted and paid in advance for a similar application. This was partly as a result of dire predictions by pesticide applicators and others that a heavy scourge of browntail moths was presently developing.

The veracity of this prediction should have been challenged by the fact that we had a cold wet spring, permitting a fungus to kill the caterpillars. But the spraying happened anyway, and in my neighborhood, there were no dead caterpillars on the ground and, in fact, no infestation.

Why harm the birds, bees and water quality unnecessarily? Let’s be rational, let’s obtain advice from knowledgeable persons who have no financial interest in selling a product and let’s not be panicked into action so detrimental to our environment.

Mabel O’Brien

Yarmouth