Spraying has consequences

Dear Editor,

Regarding Erik Gantt’s article about the impacts of mosquito spraying in the Saratoga area: The article claimed that mosquito spraying doesn’t harm any other creatures, while citing studies that sound to me shockingly inadequate to prove any such assumption. In particular, I can’t let the near-demise of the nighthawk in this valley go unquestioned.

In the 1960s when I was growing up out in the countryside near Saratoga, my family and I would climb to the top of a ridge on summer evenings to witness a spectacular event. From every direction nighthawks would come until the sky seeme...