With the increase in awareness of pesticides harmfulness to human beings, newer and safer pest control methods have been developed to substitute the out-dated and harmful ones. One of these is Pest Baiting method.
The Pest Baiting method could, to some extent, related to the Kamikaze style of killing our target pest as it relies the pest itself to kill other members of the pest.
This is actually how it does.
The target pests are fed with poisoned foods (baits) that will not immediately kill them but instead allow times for them to bring the baits back to their nests and subsequently feed their nest mates.
This strategy is very effective when applies to social insects like termites and ants where members in a colony (family) are closely related and relying on workers to forage for food and feed others. It is also very effective against some pests like cockroaches that have cannibalism behaviour.
In order to succeed, firstly, the intended bait must be highly palatable (the target pest like to eat).
Secondly, the quantity of pesticide embedded in the bait must be very small so that it would not immediately kill the foraging pests otherwise it would defeat the purpose.
Thirdly, certain pest species might require subsequent baiting rounds to achieve a total control. Thus, progress monitoring is essential for a successful program.
Lastly, these baiting techniques normally require trained operators who have good knowledge in where to apply the bait, how soon a re-baiting round should be done, what species are not susceptible to the bait and so on.
The pest baiting method has in fact revolutionized the whole aspect of pest control which tremendously reduces the quantity of pesticides usage in household pest control.
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