Page 29 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #10

few months ago I did clear plastic pots while I identify them.
a terrible thing. I was
tending to my patio
plants, barefoot, when
I disturbed an ants’
nest under a pot. The
Afeisty invertebrates
were furious. They flung themselves at
my toes, sinking their mandibles into my
exposed pink flesh. It hurt. A lot. As my
foot ballooned up, red mist clouded my
judgement. I grabbed the kettle and doused
my attackers with boiling hot water. A few
seconds later, all that remained was a puddle
full of tiny, floating bodies.
In hindsight, I am horrified at my
actions. I consider myself an animal lover
and protector of wildlife. My pesticide-
free garden is full of wildflowers, messy
corners and insect havens. The store where
I keep my chicken food is visited regularly
ustrat on by wood mice. Like a scene from Beatrix
I Potter, they climb into the tall bin at night,
Ca der/Centra morning I simply let them go, serenading
then are too fat and too full to escape. In the
them to the tune of Que Sera, Sera.
Moths I’m kind to as well. I have a light
ustrat ons by J trap, which I put out at night to lure them
for a closer look. The insects are unharmed
I and often I carefully transfer them to
October 2018
boundary that oscillates wildly depending
Sometimes, a gravid female will lay eggs
and, although it may seem ridiculous, I feel
a sense of responsibility. Many’s the brood
of caterpillars I have raised because their
mother ‘gave birth’ in my care.
If a spider or ladybird is spotted in my
house, it is dutifully caught and relocated
to the outside world, yet I have, in the
past, flattened flies and massacred
mosquitoes. What double standards are
these? I am a hypocrite wrapped in a Cthe Greek word oikos, meaning
tangled web of contradiction and double
standards. I call myself a wildlife enthusiast
but have blood on my hands.
I am not alone, however. Our attitudes to
the so-called ‘pests’ we share our spaces with
are varied and complex. They range from the
laid back ‘live and let live’ approach, where
nibbled cabbages are the price paid for happy
wildlife, to the vegetable patch vigilantes, an
elite horticulturalist corps that come armed
with spray guns and chemical weapons.
harm a fly; and those who are prepared to
There are those who would, literally, never
lynch wasps guilt-free because, they would
have us believe, “it’s either us or them”.
Like most people, I
am somewhere in the
middle, with an ethical
on the species, context and swelling of
the affected body part. I don’t imagine
there is a BBC Wildlife reader out there
who hasn’t, at some point, deliberately
killed a pest of some sort.
onflict like this is unavoidable,
(although I continue to beat
myself up about the patio ants).
The word ‘ecology’ derives from
‘dwelling’, and our homes and gardens are
indeed their own little ecosystems. These
are created via the interactions that occur
between the component species.
In our human-made ecosystems, we call
the shots. “It’s your space to occupy, so it’s
up to you to set the rules,” says scientist
and gardener Martin Coath of Plymouth
University. “You get to choose what stays
and what goes, what lives and what dies.”
Some ant species, for example, can
become a genuine problem. “Their nests
become so engrained and widespread
and populated that the soil becomes
BBC Wildlife 29