MOLINE, Illinois – With warmer weather on the way mosquitoes are beginning to appear. But one future Eagle Scout is helping cut down on the insect population in Moline.
It’s 570 miles or an eight-hour car ride from the Quad Cities to Wichita, Kansas. And for Wichita native, Kyle Huddleston, it was a trip to exemplify leadership, lend a hand, and become an Eagle Scout.
Huddleston heard from a family friend, Kelly Sanchez, about a mosquito problem at Green Valley Park.
“She said she needed something done for her soccer club,” says Huddleston.
Sanchez maintains the soccer fields at Green Valley Park.
“It’s our number one complaint that you get eaten by mosquitoes, you get eaten alive,” comments Sanchez.
The field, near the Rock River, is a hot spot for the blood sucking insects to breed. But Huddleston came up with a solution, which was his final project to become and Eagle Scout – hanging bat boxes.
It gives the bats a habitat and if you put them in the sun, they’ll use them,” Huddleston explains.
Placing the boxes near the soccer fields brings bats who in exchange eat the mosquitoes.
“One bat will eat 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour,” states Sanchez.
With 10 bat boxes across all Green Valley Park, Kyle is doing his park to cut down on mosquitoes and ruse to the next level.
“When it gets dusk and the sun goes down, the bats will come out and start clearing the field of all the mosquitoes we have down here,” says Sanchez.
The bat box project took Huddleston a total of six months to complete altogether. He will graduate high school this spring.
