BUG BUDDIES
Hundreds of Regina kids, including Hayden Legard, were in Victoria Park on Thursday As the City released 250,000 ladybugs to Choruses of laughter. Ladybugs feed on tree-damaging Aphids, which helps the City reduce its reliance on pesticides.
Under sunny skies and green trees, hundreds of children and parents gathered for the City of Regina’s second annual ladybug release in Victoria Park on Thursday morning.
After doling out 600 ladybug cookies to enthusiastic children, City of Regina workers began scooping live ladybugs out of bags and into hundreds of tiny reaching hands. Kids shrieked and giggled as the ladybugs crawled over their fingers and up their arms. Other children carried the ladybugs in hats or small containers.
After receiving the ladybugs, they rushed to the base of the nearest tree to release them in the grass.
Shaunna Dunn brought her two daughters, five-year-old Sabine Manera and three-year-old Ruby Manera, and her six-year-old nephew Oliver Dunn to the ladybug release.
“It was ticklish,” Oliver said of carrying the ladybugs. Ruby emphatically added, “They crawled up my face.”
Dunn said this is a great event to teach young kids about nature.
“It’s good that they start to understand how nature works and how ecosystems work and how important it is that we are putting things back into our environment that help support it,” she said.
Dunn did feel that the event would have benefited from being spread out through the park more instead of being clustered in one crowded spot.
Young cousins Maizy Russellmaclean and Eloise Bundy were both at the release last year, and were eager to participate again.
“Because I really like them,” said Bundy of why she wanted to come back. Bundy dropped her handful of ladybugs before reaching a tree because “they tickle too much.”
“To see the ladybugs and have them in your hand. I forgot that they would actually tickle you,” said Russell-maclean.
Amy Bundy was with the girls, and explained to them what the ladybugs do. “They eat little bugs that hurt the trees,” she said.
She wished the City of Regina would take the time to explain more about the purpose of the ladybugs to the kids, although she recognized that kids’ short attention spans can make that difficult.
Russell Eirich, manager of forestry, pest control and horticulture for the City of Regina, said the point of the release is to keep the number of aphids down. Aphids are like “a mosquito for a tree,” he said, because they suck the plant juices out of the leaves.
“Ladybugs will eat up to 2,400 aphids a year, roughly 20 aphids a day, so it’s a fairly significant predator in the natural world,” he said.
“It does help us reduce our reliance on pesticides and so that’s kind of what we’re trying to teach the kids, that when you’re trying to control things in nature that there is more than one option, (more) than just your tradition pesticides.”
An additional 250,000 ladybugs were handed out to children in cups for them to release in their own yards and gardens.