Tag Archives: rodents

EPA Webinar: Excluding Pests from Schools – September 22

We’re proud to pass along this announcement from the EPA regarding their upcoming webinar.

Excluding Pests from Schools

photo looking up towards the top of the side of a beige building composed of windows against a blue sky. Blinds are visiible in the window on the bottom right of the photo.

Wherever children go, pests follow – even back to school. Pests know where the goodies can be found and they strive to find a way into the building – under doors, through cracks in masonry, in gaps around pipes and wires – they find a way. Pest issues are universal – from rural to urban schools and all types of neighborhoods in-between. The best way to defeat them in their quest to inhabit your schools is to exclude them from entering the school buildings in the first place. NYSIPM’s Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann and Matt Frye will help you to identify the most likely places of entry in your buildings and the surest way to seal them out.

Attend this free webinar to learn where pests are entering schools and how to keep them out.

Sept. 22 | 2-3:30 p.m. EDT | Followed by a 30-minute Q&A

Register Now

Learning Objectives

  • Learn which pests are of concern in schools and how they are entering.
  • Learn how to exclude common ground-level pests, such as rodents and crawling arthropods, and effective integrated pest management strategies to reduce these pests.
  • Learn how to exclude common flying pests such as bats, flies and stinging insects, and the role of monitoring and trapping.

Presenters

NYS IPM Program’s own:

Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, Ph.D. Community IPM Coordinator

Matthew Frye, Ph.D. Community IPM Extension Area Educator

 

 

 

 

 

EPA’s Upcoming IPM 2022-2023 Webinar Series

New season, new topics. Review the types of IPM issues we will cover over the next year in our 2022-2023 webinar series. Mark your calendars now.

 

Dealing with Woodchuck Concerns

“My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks.” – Henry David Thoreau

photo of Paul Curtis

Dr. Paul Curtis

Thank you to guest blogger Paul D. Curtis, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University.

 

Woodchucks (Marmota monax) are large members of the squirrel family and are closely related to other species of marmots in North America. They usually are grizzled grayish brown from head to toe. Their compact, chunky body is supported by short strong legs. The forefeet have long, curved claws that are well adapted for digging burrows.

photo of brown, chunky mammal with short, rounded ears and a thick neck with one paw pulling a plant towards its open mouth

Woodchuck, aka Marmota monax, groundhog, whistle pig, and land beaver. Photo: mass.gov

Like other rodents, woodchucks have chisel‐like incisor teeth. Their eyes, ears, and nose are located toward the top of the head, allowing the animal to remain concealed in its burrow while checking for danger over the rim of the burrow opening.

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4 red and black insects on a brick wall

For some pests, your school is their winter getaway

smiling women dressed for autumn in front of a outdoor fall scene

Joellen Lampman, School & Turfgrass IPM Extension Support Specialist

I recently presented at the New York State School Facilities Association Conference & Expo and was asked multiple times, “What can I do about boxelder bugs?”. That provided the opportunity to talk about them and other fall invaders. The good news is that most fall invaders are just looking for a warm place to wait out the cold winter. The bad news is that usually we have had our first frost by now, and the lack of frost is  extending the period of time that intruders are attempting to break into our buildings. But there are still steps we can take to prevent more from coming in.

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School IPM 2020 Conference

When it comes to student learning and achievement, the physical environment is a full partner.” – Dr. Lorraine Maxwell, Cornell University A picture of a school with a banner that says "School is Open Humans Only" with a bedbug, cockroach, tick looking at the sign. The tick is holding a mouse pull toy and the cockroach is holding a coronavirus shaped balloon. Includes the logos for NYSIPM, Cornell AgriTech, and USDA: NIFA

Another annual NYSIPM Conference is in the books and it was certainly different from what we imagined when we started planning last year. Covid-19 caused us to move the in-person gathering from April to a virtual conference in August. (Silver lining: it turns out virtual conferences are easier to get online than those we record with a video camera. You can now view the conference presentations from our YouTube channel.)  The virus also both supported and distracted from our main goal of discussing school pest issues that need community interventions to address.

As I discussed in my July post, Back to School – Humans Only!, Covid-19 is an excellent example of an issue that cannot be handled by school personnel alone. We have all been called to support the openings of schools through practicing social distancing, wearing masks, and handwashing whenever we leave our homes. As we looked at pest issues with similar community connections, examples included pests like bed bugs coming into schools on backpacks, but also wheelchairs and cockroaches coming in supplies and food packaging. Increasing communication and engaging collaborators that can help address these issues in the community preventing the introduction of pests into schools were brought up repeatedly. You can view that discussion here. Drs. Dina Fonseca and Paul Curtis also provided us with excellent examples of community members working together to manage mosquitoes and deer.

Besides influencing our conference, how else will Covid-19 impact schools from an IPM perspective? A few virus mitigation practices have direct impact on pests.

Reduced clutter

Photo of slide from conference: "Summary – NYC study Students’ perception of the school’s social learning environment is, in part, shaped by the physical quality of the school building. The social learning environment affects student attendance and subsequently academic achievement. Demographic factors play a role but school building quality remains an important contributing factor to the learning environment."

School building conditions matter in learning outcomes.

To decrease items that need to be regularly cleaned and sanitized, only required items are being kept in classrooms. The elimination of furniture and cushions, fewer books, less arts and crafts materials (or materials stored in easy to clean containers) will provide less space for pests to hide. We touched on this in the blog post, Bed Bugs in Schools – Prevention. And, as we learned in our keynote address, Healthy Environments for Learning by Dr. Lorraine Maxwell,  too much clutter can also lead to cognitive fatigue. While there is much influencing learning outcomes this year, we can hope that simplifying classrooms will help reduce pests and support learning.

Food in the classroom

There will be expanded food in classrooms as student travel within building is curtailed. Breakfast in the classroom has already proven to be challenging. This year lunch in the classroom, as well as teacher breaks, will increase the volume of food and food waste, the number of spills, and the amount of cleaning occurring throughout the school. On the School IPM Best Practices website, you can find information and resources on breakfast in the classroom.

Ventilation

To increase ventilation, windows and doors are being encouraged to be left open. Open doors leave opportunities for rodents and flying insects to enter buildings. Windows should have screens in place to exclude pests, but have screens been checked for holes or bent frames? Bobby Corrigan discussed rodent exclusion in his presentation, Identifying and Understanding the Rodent Vulnerable Areas (RVAs) of Schools: Essential for Sustainable IPM.

Sanitation

With IPM, we usually discuss cleaning more than sanitation, but Covid-19 has created a shift. (Note: this is unfortunate as this particular virus succumbs to soap and water.) We are not the experts on this issue, but have included a couple of blog posts to help provide some guidance:

The most important outcome of the conference is the message that school building matters and, indeed, as Dr. Maxwell concludes, “When it comes to student learning and achievement, the physical environment is a full partner.” And we all have a part to play.

Be sure to visit our School IPM 2020: Where We’ve Been and What’s Next webpage for information on our speakers and links to the recordings of all the presentations.

For more information on school IPM, visit our Schools and Daycare Centers webpage.

Back to School – Keeping the Rodents Outside

We should have little trouble with vermin if builders would hear and understand the ‘language’ of vermin and do a better job in eliminating their entrances and hiding place.” – Hugo Hartnak, 1939

photo of Bobby Corrigan wearing a hard hat, holding a clipboard in one hand and a flashlight in the other pointing out a rusted wall grid plate with a hole large enough for a rat to fit through.

For Bobby Corrigan, pest management is a passion. Called upon for his expertise across the country, we are honored to include him in our conference.

Pests enter school buildings in one of two ways: they are transported in by students, staff, or delivery truck or they make their way in from the outside. The School IPM 2020: Where We’ve Been and What’s Next virtual conference will focus on the first mode, but we will also include information on the second with tips, and a tool, to help with exclusion – or keeping pests out of buildings. Dr. Bobby Corrigan, co-founder of the first Scientific Coalition on Pest Exclusion, will join us to discuss rodent vulnerable areas.

All conference participants that complete the pre- and post-tests and evaluation will be mailed a Frye Inspection Tool (FIT tool). This simple probe can be used to demonstrate if a rodent can squeeze under a gap or through a round opening. By design, if the probe ‘FITs,’ so too can the specified rodent. This tool can be used to educate decision makers about rodent entry points and help justify pest exclusion.

picture of a F.I.T. tool, a probe with two different sized ends and demarcations to measure gnaw mark and dropping size.

A F.I.T. tool allows you to assess potential rodent entryways and identify whether gnaw marks and droppings were caused by rats or mice.

The measurement specs for the FIT are based on the size of adult rodent skulls. If a rodent can fit its head under a gap or through an opening, they are able to wiggle their body through (watch video Mouse Entry Points to see a mouse in action). The FIT can also be used to help differentiate rodent evidence (both gnaw marks and droppings) between rats and mice.

Signing up as a school district? We will mail enough FIT tools to cover all the participants from your district, so be sure to provide information for them all.A picture of a school with a banner that says "School is Open Humans Only" with a bedbug, cockroach, tick looking at the sign. The tick is holding a mouse pull toy and the cockroach is holding a coronavirus shaped balloon.

For the full agenda, registration, and pesticide recertification credit information, please visit https://nysipm.cornell.edu/resources/nys-ipm-conferences/school-ipm-2020-where-weve-been-and-whats-next/.