Seeking new, more efficient, and less repugnant ways of how to kill stink bugs has become a subject of preoccupation for many people across the United States. Although stink bugs have been around on the planet earth for thousands of years, they are a relatively new arrival here in the US. Stink bugs are indigenous to southeastern Asia and are commonplace in the Koreas, Japan, and China. It was not until sometime in the past decade that they were first spotted here on American soil.
While nobody knows for certain how they got here, the prevailing theory is that they were inadvertently brought here as stowaways aboard shipping crates from Asia. Over the past decade, they have managed to adapt to our climate and have multiplied by the millions. Having first been spotted in Allentown, Pennsylvania, they have now been sighted in over 30 states across the continental US. And their numbers are expected to get worst. While they may be a nuisance to most people, they actually pose a threat to the agricultural industry.
Stink bugs are unique among the insect kingdom in that they have been endowed by nature with their own distinct form of self-defense mechanism to help their species service. Unlike other insects that might bite you or sting you, stink bugs will release a putrid odor into the air whenever they are frightened or attacked. And it is for this reason, many scientists speculate, that stink bugs actually do not have any natural predators that would hunt them down and kill them. Generally speaking, stink bugs are at the top of the food chain, in this respect.
With regard to the issue of natural predators, however, researches have discovered that there is one, after all: However, this predator doesn’t go after live stink bugs themselves. Instead, it targets the unborn eggs that stink bugs lay. And that predator happens to be the wasp. Wasps have been found to prey upon stink bug eggs.
Experts believe that one way to keep the stink bug population under control and to keep it in check, preventing it from growing much more rapidly than it already has been over the past decade, there needs to be a natural predator in the wild that can feed on them. This of course would supplement other efforts at how to kill stink bugs, such as through the use of pesticides, traps, and the like. We can do our part to kill and exterminate stink bugs as we come into contact with them. But for those stink bugs that are still out in the wild, there would need to be a way to keep their population under control naturally.
Otherwise, as we have seen, the stink bug epidemic has only been growing. The growth rate of their population has not yet peaked. In fact, the epidemic has had enough of an impact so as to gain the attention and focus of the US federal government! The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has actually been conducting research and studies into the environmental impact that stink bugs have been having on the agricultural industry, and has actually floated the idea of introducing wasps into the environment, albeit, in a controlled manner.
The way this would work is that wasps would be introduced into regions where there are known stink bug eggs. The wasps would go to work, devouring them, thus preventing new stink bugs from being born. The intended consequence of this would be a slowing down in the growth rate of the stink bug population at the local level. At the very least, if this were applied in regions in the vicinity of farms, this can help to minimize any damage to crops that stink bugs might normally cause.
(Stink bugs are a threat to agriculture because they feed on fruits. They will pierce the skin of fruits and suck the juices out.)
Now some might cry foul, claiming that this is an example of employing a “scorched earth policy” – by killing off stink bugs, we will be solving one problem, but creating a new one. By introducing more wasps into the environment, we would merely be replacing one problem with another: trading out stink bugs for wasps.
But desperate times call for desperate measures, as the saying goes. It remains to be seen where the government will take this initiative. In the meantime, let’s review some tips on other ways how to kill stink bugs.