If it's in my apartment, I'll do my best to kill it. I have to live here. I've relocated some moths to the outside in the past, but there's not always time.
If it's already outside, I'll let it be. As an illustration, if there's an ant where my foot is about to come down, I'll do my best to miss it. The ecosystem does need them.
Obviously, those that try to sting or bite me are an exception. And I've grimly accepted that I have to put the kibosh on lanternflies whenever I see them and am able to get to them. Although I'm still hoping our birds acquire a taste for them.
2 comments:
Ancient Greek for Insect, eh?
For the most part your way of dealing with insects is pretty much the same as mine.
I'll kill the ones I come across inside the place - I really don't like the silverfish that tend to live here quietly but so long as they stay out of sight I don't get aggressive. Otherwise, it's squish and into the flushing toilet.
Outside I won't kill them deliberately either, or try not to. Did you know that practising Buddhists won't kill anything because it might be their grandmother? I'm thinking grannie must have lived an especially sinful life to end up as a fruitfly or something else low.
One of those insects we'll kill under certain circumstances are those that bite - like mosquitoes (no mercy for them). But if a wasp gets into our apartment we'll usually catch it in a glass and put a piece of stiff cardboard underneath so we can put it out again. Usually all they want is to get back outside.
Then there are those creatures that aren't insects but have some insectoid aspects - spiders. House spiders are allowed to stay (they like eating silverfish and others we simply haven't seen) but that's so long as they don't scare me by hiding in a towel - then they could die by an accidental reaction on my part. If I find one that's grown very large it gets the glass and cardboard treatment since it's probably big enugh to fight its battles outdoors.
It's all Greek to me, heh-heh. Ancient Greek letters look interesting. Some of them stand for the same sounds as our identical letters, others don't, and some are quite different from anything we have. Plus it's a slightly different aesthetic. My understanding is that Greek characters directly influenced the Etruscans, and Etruscan letters were the basis for Latin script, i.e. ours.
I see what you mean. Silverfish would be quite unpleasant if you had a lot of them in your living space. A few in the basement won't bother anyone. Well, unless there are basement apartments. Anyway, a little judicious pruning should keep them from getting out of hand.
The First Precept of Buddhism recommends against taking life of any creature in general. I guess if the fruit fly isn't your grandmother it could be someone else's. Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism still condone meat eating, although I'm not sure how that works. Anyway, I read someone on Reddit saying that many have these little smoke coils that keep mosquitoes away.
Again, yeah, mosquitoes and other biters take their lives in their hands if they get on me. Luckily I've never found a wasp or anything like that in my apartment. It seems to me that trying to squash one would actually increase your chances of getting stung, so it's better to find some way to coax it outside or trap and release.
I think in recent years I've only actually killed a spider once, and that was more out of shock than anything else. It rained the next day, but I'm not sure the events are related. My approach to them is basically the same as yours. It's handy to have a little one here and/or there to get rid of the other mites. A big one might be better off in the trees and bushes, and you don't want so many that they start to feed on you instead of the insects.
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