I live in Berkeley and this scrapes the bejebus out of me. Five years of spraying? May as well pick up a smoking habit to go with that.

..."agricultural areas" are left around Frisco Bay?  Most of the area is urbanized I thought.  Where would they spray it?

From the San Francisco Chronicle article...

"Before its use in Santa Cruz and Monterey last year, the pesticide, a hormone that throws off the scents of mating moths, had been used aerially only over farms and never over populated areas."

I know I'm quite naive at times, but what can't someone combine this hormone with sticky trap technology and find a way to draw the threatening moths -- and no beneficial or innocent insects -- to their deaths? I mean... if they can blanket an area with a noxious cloud of the stuff, why can't they set traps containing such enormous amounts of the hormone that the moth in question is drawn to it like, well, a moth to a flame?!

Any entomologists out there care to comment on this?

Why aren't we using traps instead of poison? Not enough people thinking outside the box or are there technical barriers? There a certainly enough unemployed people out there available for placing traps in strategic locations.

Seems we ought to know enough about insect mating behavior by now to entirely eliminate the spraying of pesticides on desirable plants. The practice should really be history by now.

No more spraying pesticides!

Without looking up this species I can speculate on two problems.

(1) Traps based on attractants do not work like simple sticky traps. They can attract insects to the area of the trap where they do considerable damage to plants before they enter the trap.

(2) It's VERY difficult and costly to distribute and maintain traps over hundreds, or thousands of acres.

I suspect the insect hormone is not the problem. There are probably other interesting ingredients, like solvents or emulsifiers or chemicals that aid dispersal, that are harming humans and, I assume, other vertebrates.

It is terribly sad that this spraying is necessary, but we environmentalists must always consider the facts and science and not just our own gut reactions that say all "pesticides are bad."

LBAM is a dreadful danger to California's environment. Our state is home to many of the most progressive and earth-friendly agriculture businesses on the planet, many of which are small farms and most of which exist on the slimmest of profit margins; a pest such as LBAM will have the most profound effect on them. You can't just control a pest in ag counties; once it takes hold in neighboring areas, the battle is lost.

But this moth is not just a danger to agriculture, as a previous poster implied. It is extremely dangerous to redwoods and oaks, among others. These are the trees that define California and are cornerstones of the ecosystem.

Before you join a campaign against the spraying, please learn all the facts; it would be absurd for us to crusade against this spraying unless we can come up with a better solution for California's fragile environment.

Idealistic404 presents no evidence to support his/her claims about potential harm and the post is filled with dangerous half truths.  The fact is that these moths have lived here for awhile and there's no evidence that they're causing any harm whatsoever.

First, all pesticides ARE bad, because they're petrochemicals that poison the land, air, water, plants and animals.  If that's not a definition of bad for you, you're not an environmentalist.  While there may be some instances where a non-native species will cause more harm than the pesticide used to kill it, this is clearly not one of those instances.

Second, while it's true that there are many small, organic farms in California, the vast majority of farmland here, as elsewhere, is chemical farmland, not organic, and that's where the impetus is coming from to spray.

This poster sounds like a shill for the pesticide or agribusiness industry.  Don't believe anything (s)he says until and unless (s)he supports it with facts and reasoning.  Again, read the article on the indymedia website posted above.  It gives a far more truthful account of what's going on than you'll get from the corporate media.

No wonder those spray pilots are living and eating high.  One article says they are spending 74 million on the project and that this "harmless moth" as Wolverine calls it threatens 640 million dollars worth in annual food crop production.

Indymedia article gives no information nor scientific support for the claim that the moths are not a threat. Just vague allusions to other continents and biospheres. I would hate to be sprayed by this stuff myself but crazed alarmism doesn't help. To complain (as the author does) that the synthetic moth pheromone is technically a explosive compound does not give me a warm feeling of rationality.

It is the burden of those claiming potential harm to prove it, not those of us who correctly show that there has been no harm and is little likelihood of significant harm.  Boyscientist and others supporting the spraying are promoting hysterical and unsupported claims by agirbusiness.  I haven't seen one scintilla of evidence that this moth either has caused or will cause any significant harm.  Additionally, the only harm identified has been to revenues of farmers.  Even if this potential harm were credible, which it is not, harm to the revenues of farmers is NOT environmental harm.

And BTW, "harmless moths" is Boyscientist's term, I never said that.  While no one has identified any harm in the U.S. caused by this moth so far, all non-native species cause some ecological harm by competing with native species.  The issue is how much harm they cause, because the only excuse for using a pesticide to control them (eradication is not a possibility) is that they cause more harm than the pesticide will.

Wolverine your are mistaken about my intentions.  I'm not explicitly defending the spraying. I only want to criticizing assertions that we are not justified in trying to control the moth before it becomes well established here in the USA. And I reacted to the fear mongering I read in the article you referenced. Explosive pesticides indeed.

Did you even read the Wikipedia article on the moth?

Nice name for a little moth whose larvae can feed on hundreds of different plants in 55 different families, can't be controlled very well and can render a food crop unsaleable.

Since starting this response I read a research report from UC Davis and now I better understand the hullabaloo.  The moth is so feared world-wide that even if it only damages California crops slightly, it will severely damage California agriculture including food, horticulture, and nursery because the rest of the USA and the world will not allow California products to enter their area.  No wonder Arnold supports it.

It's too funny to complain about "no evidence" and then cite Indymedia as a source. I can appreciate the passion and important outsider perspective that site gives, but their posts are a far, far cry from scientific literacy or objective, credible journalism.

Read the UC Davis report, the extensive NY Times & Sac Bee coverage, or heck even the Wikipedia article, before you consider Indymedia a reliable source of information.

I'm not claiming to be an expert. I'm just sooo tired of shrill anti-everything conspiracy theorists who give environmentalists a bad name. When anti-scientists on the left undermine progressive credibility, they play into the hands of the anti-scientists on the right.

You have not even alleged any harm aside from potential harm to the economic interests of farmers.  This is not even close to being a legitimate reason for spraying a pesticide on an entire area.  And preventing long distance shipping of California produce would be a good thing, considering all the environmental harm transportation causes and considering that that global trade is the cause of the problem to begin with.

(Aside from completely banning pesticides, which is what should be done unless it can be shown that more environmental or ecological harm will be caused by not using them, aerial spraying of pesticides should be completely outlawed, as the pesticides cannot be adequately controlled when spraying from planes.)

If either of you have evidence that the moth has caused any harm in the U.S. or that there is a credible threat of ecological harm, please post it.  Otherwise, stop the disparaging comments and name-calling, such as those against Indymedia and "shrill anti-everything conspiracy theorists."

And BTW, why do you think that the corporate media, whose job it is to make money by propagating corporate propaganda?  Independent sources such as Indymedia are far more credible than the New York Times or Sacramento Bee, because the Indymedia writers aren't publishing for profit.