Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Rodenator

This is topic The Rodenator in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 04-15-2009, 09:42 AM:

Have you seen this? It pumps a manageable concentration of flammable gas (3% propane and 97% oxygen)into gopher holes and then ignites it with an electric spark effectively eliminating the offending varmint...by toasting him. They are using it in Spokane at the Finch Arboretum to eliminate a problem with burrowing animals. They claim it's a humane way to handle it which I found laughable at first...but then compared to the alternatives it's quick and relatively painless. Isn't technology wonderful?

[ 04-15-2009, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Joe Tommassello ]

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 04-15-2009, 02:00 PM:

You mean we are no longer allowed to dump gasoline into the holes and ignite it? [Confused]

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 04-15-2009, 03:52 PM:

Isn't that how they toast the Quizno's subs?

Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 04-15-2009, 04:08 PM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
it's quick and relatively painless

Haha, according to who?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-15-2009, 04:19 PM:

Here in Lawton a prairie dog town in Elmer Thomas Park has its population controlled by using some sort of poison gas to kill a few of the animals every year. I'm not sure what they're using, but I think the poison is in pellet form. I don't know if they use water or something else to activate it. They throw some of it down a hole and pack the hole with dirt. The critters inside get gassed. The actual gas itself chemically breaks down and becomes harmless after a short amount of time.

The city's parks and recreation department got into some trouble with state environmental regulators when they first started killing some of the prairie dogs because they didn't get all the required permitting and other paperwork done. When the public got wind of it the whole thing started up a big shit storm between knuckleheads who didn't want any of the prairie dogs killed and assholes who wanted them all killed. The folks who wanted something called "balance" were drowned out over all the emotional yelling.

The whole situation could have been avoided had the city kept up its periodic population control efforts. Instead, someone cried foul about the culling. The city tried using a costly vacuum truck to suck the prairie dogs out of their holes. It didn't work all that well. Instead of going back to culling they left the situation alone for over a decade. Prairie dogs breed only once per year (contrary to popular misconceptions they multiply voraciously like mice, dogs and cats). But a decade's worth of prairie dog litters creates one hell of a problem.

Black tailed prairie dogs are actually an endangered species. Many prairie dogs towns have died out because of disease that occurs when a town is overpopulated. Bubonic plague can wipe out an entire town of thousands of prairie dogs in a few days. Occasional poisoning or gassing of some prairie dogs is needed for the sake of the entire prairie dog town. Predation from birds, snakes and domestic pets doesn't work because the prairie dogs are far too good at warning each other of threats.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 04-15-2009, 04:39 PM:

They should just hire this guy.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 04-16-2009, 03:34 PM:

quote:
quote: Joe Tommassello
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it's quick and relatively painless
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Haha, according to who?

As John referenced above - according to Carl, the assistant groundskeeper at Bushwood Country Club..a man licensed to kill gophers!

Actually I am thinking it's more humane than poisoning or flushing them out (drowning them) - or sucking them into a truck with a vacuum! I suppose if you could use the poison pellet process Bobby describes that would be good if you can be sure you have the tunnels sealed off well enough to contain the gas long enough to do the job.

Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 04-16-2009, 03:54 PM:

I've always wondered if there was some sort of animal 'birth control' they could put in food to make them sterile.

I swear I saw a program many moons ago, that showed how scientist nuked blow-flys in Africa to make them sterile. Sent them out to the world to reproduce, but since they couldn't,the population has dwindled. But maybe I just dreamt that...?

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-16-2009, 09:18 PM:

Feed them boric acid and sugar water..stuff eventually dehydrates them to oblivion. It's how you get rid of ants for awhile..

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 04-17-2009, 08:30 AM:

Speaking of ants they have infested our new kitchen in the last week. We kill at least 40-50 a day on our counter. We clean like crazy but they keep coming in somewhere. We have a baby that is crawling so we have to be careful what we use and where. Otherwise I would get some spray and kill all of the little buggers.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-17-2009, 09:14 AM:

Clean has nothing to do with keeping these varmits out. In the Northeast and especially NYC, the population of bed bugs has skyrocketed dramatically in the last five years, and they are proving to be next to impossible to get rid of unless you get rid of everything in the residence, including your cloths and then gas-bomb the place.

The problem has gotten so bad (read: it's hit the rich people), that the city council just had a meeting to try to figure out what to do about it. They say that bed bugs were almost unheard of in the US up until the 50s when DDT was outlawed. Also exterminators in response to customs wanting less poison in their environment have in the last few years switched from spray pesticides to gels and traps to which the bed bugs are immune. Without DDT, the bed bug populations quickly got out of control.

New York is especially hard hit because of the high tourist influx, carrying the bugs in with them from all parts of the world....you know, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse....and all those bed bugs.

I found out that some people on the ground floor of our building have gotten infestations (we are on the sixth). This means it's only a matter of time before they work their way up to us. My lady is terrified.

The newest technology is that they come in with CO2 containers much like CO2 fire extinguishers and literally freeze the entire room, spraying CO2 snow everywhere. This kills the bug(ger)s and the eggs. Thing is, they reproduce so fast and exponentially that just a few eggs that survive & you've got the problem all over again. JoAnne is already depressed even at the thought that bugs will be eating us as we sleep. Me, I'm actually intrigued at the thought of seeing the exterminators coating the our entire bedroom with CO2 snow!

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-17-2009, 10:01 AM:

quote: Frank Angel
Without DDT, the bed bug populations quickly got out of control.

Then why was it that the bedbug problem only got out of control recently rather than some time close to when DDT was banned? There was no bedbug problem even in the 2000, so did the lack of DDT cause that too?

Though it would be correct to say that the increase is due to recent bans on most strong pesticides. DDT, though isn't the major one.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-17-2009, 02:09 PM:

I think many animal rights people are a bunch of hypocrites. How many of them own fly swatters, for example?

I'm just glad all the factories, highways, railroads, etc. got built and so much medical research got done before the environmentalists took over the world. Otherwise, we would be living in a primitive country and probably wouldn't have a life expectancy much over 50.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 04-18-2009, 10:37 PM:

We got some kind of bugs in our bedding when I was in Vietnam, the solution was simple, put all the bedding, infested or not in a pile, pour lots of gasoline on it and light it....bug infestation solved quickly and efficiently. Shortly after that the latrine was infested....burned that down too. No problems thereafter. Not many insect issues that a good fire won't cure.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-19-2009, 12:21 AM:

The bed bug problem is even showing up here in Lawton. The things not only bite you in beds. They can make themselves home in the nooks and crannies of a couch or recliner.

I'm not worried about the bed bug problem. My pillows and mattress are zipped up in allergy proof covers. When I lounge around on my couch I'm usually fully dressed.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-19-2009, 04:19 AM:

quote: Chris Slycord
Then why was it that the bedbug problem only got out of control recently rather than some time close to when DDT was banned? There was no bedbug problem even in the 2000, so did the lack of DDT cause that too?

"Bedbugs were believed to be altogether eradicated 50 years ago in the United States and elsewhere with the widespread use of DDT."
--- Cranshaw. W.S. F.B. Peairs. "Bat Bugs and Bed Bugs."

"Bed bug infestations were common in the United States before World War II. But with improvements in hygiene, and especially the widespread use of DDT during the 1940s and ‘50s, the bugs all but vanished.....In recent years, bed bugs have also made a comeback in the U.S., increasingly being encountered in homes, apartments, hotels, motels, health care facilities, dormitories, shelters, schools, and movie theatres (yipes!)....Immigration and international travel have undoubtedly contributed to the resurgence of bed bugs in the U.S. Changes in modern pest control practice, and less effective bed bug pesticides are other factors suspected for the recurrence.
-- Bed Bugs, Michael F. Potter, Extension Entomologist
University of Kentucky College of Agriculture

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-19-2009, 10:50 AM:

You seemed to not understand what I was getting at. I'm well aware that the use of DDT helped get rid of bed bugs. But I asked why the lack of DDT, which happened decades ago, is the main impetus for a sudden increase in bed bugs 37 years after the ban went into place (banned in 1972).

I agree with you that a reason we have a hard time dealing with the infestations is the lack of DDT, but I am just saying that if the cause of the bed bug increase was DDT being banned, I would've expected the bed bug problem to have occurred within a few years of the ban rather than a few decades later.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-19-2009, 11:17 AM:

I think increased "globalism," meaning more imported goods and imported people are bringing in creepy crawlies we haven't had in decades.

Whether or not it's P.C. to say it, the fact remains that many nations are hundreds of years behind the United States in terms of cultural advancement and development of infrastructure. This makes a big difference with certain parasites and diseases being able to flare up in a certain place.

When we flush a toilet the contents flow to a sewage treatment plant. In many other countries a toilet's contents merely spill into a ditch next to the road, which spills into a river where many others are bathing, washing clothes or getting their drinking water. In some places people don't have any toilets to use at all. They're reduced to relieving themselves in a public place, even the middle of the street. This provides great conditions for something like a cholera outbreak.

I'm wondering if increased globalism will lead to diseases like Malaria getting a strong foot-hold in the United States. Malaria helped kill off many of those who settled the original Jamestown Colony in Virginia during the 1600s, but some suggest the Malaria carrying mosquitoes actually came along with the English settlers by way of slaves and goods they brought along from West Africa. I guess all it will take for Malaria to become a serious problem in the US is if enough mosquitoes from Central America, West Africa or SE Asia wind up here somehow.

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 04-19-2009, 04:11 PM:

Back to rodents; take your bugs to another thread.

So we have an 800 acre valley coming into Telluride that the community condemned five years ago and bought last year for $50M. Before the region's people bought the valley floor it was used for grazing cattle (hence only paid some $6K/yr in agricultural property tax) and the guys who ran the cattle made sure their stock wouldn't break their legs in prairie dog holes (using the "don't tell how" policy.)

Well, after the cows went home the prairie dogs moved in with a vengeance, hundreds of them. Of course, people, many of whom moved in after the prairie dogs did, stood up for these nasty little, flea-bitten, plague-ridden rat-brothers as if they had squatters' rights.

The story is still unfolding but one of the proposed solutions was this (still yet to be tried here): Prairie Dog Vacuum

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-19-2009, 07:38 PM:

The Prairie Dog vacuum thing doesn't work very well at all. Prairie dog town populations have to be actively managed. Kill a few, preserve the rest. A bunch of ninnies in my town don't seem to want to do that.

They don't seem to be aware of the very real fact that prairie dogs are not over-breeding rodents. They breed only once a year. The local knuckleheads need to prove me wrong on that if they'll bother to try. I've done my research on the topic.

That puts prairie dogs well above dogs, cats, mice, rats and a lot of other mammals who breed like crazy all year long. Hell, even people can breed more than once a year. Shit, I see that right here in Lawton, OK with all the white trash meth heads running around toothless yet on the make. Oh, but they're "human beings." If I had my way I'd have at least 95% (or 100%) of teenagers "tubes" tied off so their stupidity and impulsiveness wouldn't cause so much more trouble for us taxpayers. They would have to complete an education and get marketable job skills before earning their responsibility (NOT a right) to reproduce.

The biggest environmental catastrophe taking place world-wide is people over-populating wherever they live. People fucking out lots more kids causes a LOT more damage than any rodents, birds, fish or whatever else doing their own thing. We create much more of the problem than anything else.

[ 04-20-2009, 06:36 AM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]