Fire Ants Taking Over California High School
September 25, 2008 – 12:19 pm by Kim
Rialto High School has lost its football and baseball fields to 6 mm invaders. Both teams have been forced to practice elsewhere and cancel games, while they called in the experts from the state Department of Agriculture.
The problem: South American fire ants.
It may not seem like a big deal, as it is just ants building some colonies around the school fields, but the school and Dept. of Agriculture are taking this as a serious matter.
Les Greenberg, an entomologist at the University of California, says that the ants cause a health threat as a large percentage of the population is allergic to their venom. The allergic reaction can range from nausea to other serious health threats, just as bee or wasp stings.
So what is the big deal? The problem is that these ants are invasive species and slowly taking over native ant populations. Fire ants were accidentally introduced into the United States in 1929 and have been rapidly spreading, as they have no native predators.
Fire ants not only dramatically reduce populations of native ants, but also affect other insects and ground-nesting wildlife. Additionally, these tiny warriors cause major damage to crops and electrical equipment. In fact, each year South American fire ants cost the U.S. more than $6.5 billion in damage to electrical equipment and control.
Exterminators have been brought to the school and are expected to remove the colonies by the end of the week, just in time for next week’s big game.
