Bats Are A Creepy Way To Battle Little Pests

We’ve constantly got West Nile Disease warnings up around the golf course and so far this year, it’s been pretty quiet despite the mosquitoes that have been absolutely atrocious here.

Mosquitoes are part of life. We’re out in the country. We’re right along the Bow River and, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, we had an incredible amount of rain earlier this year to make a perfect environment for the mosquitoes.

After they hatched, we would ask people how their rounds went when they came in and they would say, `Just great, now I need a transfusion.’

It wouldn’t be bad during the day when we would get a little bit of a breeze. It’s when you were out at night when people came would come for a lesson around five, six, seven o’clock. They don’t seem to bother some people, but for some reason, they apparently love me.

We’ve got signs up all over the golf course asking people to not spray bug spray when they’re standing on grass because it turns yellow and brown, but you can go around and see footprints where people have stood in the middle of the fairway and sprayed themselves. The footprints are green where they stood, but not around the footprint.

We’ve also got brand new golf cars and the spray melts parts of the power carts, so it’s essential to stay on members and guests about the use of bug spray. Every tournament or any group that goes out is reminded to please spray while standing on the cart path.

We couldn’t keep bug spray in stock and we treat the ponds and have somebody regularly test for West Nile. Something that seems to work especially well in controlling mosquitoes is the presence of bats.

We’ve actually got bat houses all around the buildings and this has  been labeled a bat sanctuary. I hate bats  and they scare the life out of me, but if they help solve the problem, I’m all for it.

At night when you’re locking up, you’ll go outside and they’ll be diving. We get the odd one in the clubhouse and it freaks people out, but there was a study done and it said they will eat 1,000 mosquitoes in a night, so I’ll keep them around as much as I hate them.

It’s one way to at least control the mosquito population. The other solution is to tell people just to not hit it into the rough. I guess that’s easier said than done.

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