1961] 
Insect Control Programs 
9i 
of serious harm to crops or farm animals. (Alabama voted some 
participation funds again in 1961.) Alabama was followed out of the 
program by Florida in the spring of i960. According to a U. P. 
release on March 26 of that year, Florida Plant Commissioner W. 
G. Cowperthwaite announced, “Efforts to stamp out the fire ant 
permanently in Florida have failed.” He said that “the all-out attack 
on the pest is being abandoned. In its place a control program 
centered on badly contaminated areas will be set up. We thought at 
one time we could eradicate the fire ant, but it is impossible.” 
It seems likely that Mr. Cowperthwaite’s words accurately express 
the situation for the South insofar as the present means of control are 
employed. The original plan set forth in 1957 called for eradication 
of the ant on the North American continent, by rolling back the 
infestation from its borders, applying eradication measures to more 
central foci in the main infestation, and instituting an effective pro- 
gram of treatment of especially dangerous sources of spread, such as 
nurseries. Nearly four years and perhaps 15 million dollars after that 
plan was announced, the fire ant is still turning up in new counties, 
and is being rediscovered in counties thought to have been freed of 
the pest in Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida and North Carolina. Un- 
doubtedly, as the task of surveying for an elusive quarry continues, 
more reinfestations will turn up, and further “spot control” will be 
needed. Some two and one-half million acres, a little less than one- 
tenth of the total acreage known to have been infested, have now been 
treated with one or more of the formulations discussed above (July, 
1961). 
What Can Be Done About The Fire Ant f 
Even before the aerial spray program began, independent research 
workers had brought to the attention of the USDA authorities the 
potentialities for fire ant control residing in the use of baits, both 
poisoned and otherwise. New approaches to the use of baits were 
being explored at the time at Harvard, and a good start was being 
made at Auburn University; the two investigations have since brought 
forth different but very promising results. 
Difficulties in using most poison baits against ants include the 
development of social “bait shyness,” a term that describes the fact 
that ant colonies will often “learn” to avoid baits that have been taken 
by, and presumably have killed, some of their foraging workers. It is 
not known how bait shyness arises in the colony. Hays and Arant 13 
have developed a new peanut butter bait in which very low concen- 
trations of a new, extremely slow-acting poison called Kepone® are 
