POLICY ON KILLING

     Here is my policy of killing.

     Ant's and spiders are protected species in our house.  If they
become too much trouble, I will leave honey outside to redirect the
ants there, and I will catch the spiders and put them on a plant or
take them outside.  I will go out of my way to not kill ants and
spiders, even when trying to kill other insects.  There are no
poisonous spiders where we live, and although I am deathly afraid of
them, I admire their ugliness and wish them well.

     Flys I generally leave alone *UNLESS* they land on me, then they
become immediate fair game.  At night in bed if there is a fly in the
bedroom it will be declared fair game whether or not it has landed on
me, because in general they will either land or buzz me and thus wake
me up.  Sleep is sacrosanct, so the fly goes whether or not it is
guilty.  If I can get the fly out of the room through the window or
the door first, then the fly lives.  If the fly population gets out of
control I will hang fly strips to kill them indescriminately.

     Bees and wasps I generally leave alone and welcome unless they
form a large nest where we need to work.  I was once stung by a whole
nest of hornets and it wasn't pleasant.  None the less I consider them
beneficial both to me and others and as long as they pose no immediate
danger as a nest I let them be.  As single entities in the grass, they
are still dangerous but I generally watch out for them and leave them
alone.

     Cockroaches are generally declared fair game, mostly because
there are so many of them.  I will leave out roach motels pretty much
everywhere in our house.  If I see a roach, in general I will chase it
and kill it, but sometimes I won't, depending on my mood and the
general background number of them.

     Mosquitoes are always declared fair game, and if I see one I will
take all measures to hunt it down and kill it with out exception.
Male mosquitoes however are left alone or captured and taken outside.

     Most other flying bugs, moths and insects are generally protected
and left alone.

     Homer

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith     The Paths of Lovers    Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959 KC2ITF        Cross            Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com    In the Line of Duty    http://www.lightlink.com