dragon flies eat mosquitoes right? and with the bat population getting a big dent, is it a good idea to find a way to make sure a brood of dragonflies make it to adult hood more than normal? or is it a bad and impossible idea?
As a marine scientist I don't know much about land inverts... so I can not give you advise on raising dragonflies. They DO eat mosquitoes(and other flying bugs) just be warned that they DO bite.
Dragonflies do eat mosquitoes! (As well as horseflies, deerflies, blackflies, and other troublesome insects.) That said, most dragonfly habitats are shared with mosquitoes (lakes, ponds, streams, puddles). Dragonflies are pretty tough critters, and the most you can do is probably to just make sure any local bodies of water are clean and trash-free.
You CAN control the mosquito population, though! Since mosquitoes love to lay their eggs in stagnant water, make sure any buckets, tires, kiddie pools, etc. -- things that tend to gather rainwater -- are dumped out to deter mosquitoes from laying their eggs.
I live in a house with "lakeside" property. "lake" is a misnomer?(understatment?) as it is smallish and man made.
I don't know how to get rid of puddles, but there are not as many right now, and you aren't allowed pools in the small community and It's wrong to tresspass in yards and scream at people who's boats have water in them.
I'm not sure how you'd accomplish it, but I think you'd have to produce a really crazy huge number of dragonflies for them to have some sort of negative impact on the local ecology, and that only by dominating the available pest supply as a food source other species might also rely on. Even then I kind of doubt that would happen. Mosquito and biting fly populations seem nothing if not hardy. -_-
The only other thing I'd worry about would be predation on other 'good' bugs like pollinators, but I think they don't tend to cross paths with bees and butterflies very much.
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You CAN control the mosquito population, though! Since mosquitoes love to lay their eggs in stagnant water, make sure any buckets, tires, kiddie pools, etc. -- things that tend to gather rainwater -- are dumped out to deter mosquitoes from laying their eggs.
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I don't know how to get rid of puddles, but there are not as many right now, and you aren't allowed pools in the small community and It's wrong to tresspass in yards and scream at people who's boats have water in them.
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The only other thing I'd worry about would be predation on other 'good' bugs like pollinators, but I think they don't tend to cross paths with bees and butterflies very much.
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