They live in the corners of your home.
And they love to surprise you at your most vulnerable i.e. the shower.
Spiders are everywhere — and while most human’s instinct is to destroy upon sight — ecological consultant, educator and spider expert Lawrence Bee from the British Arachnological Society is urging the public to take mercy on these little guys who do a lot more good than bad.
Bee shared with UNILAD:
“If you just think about spiders in your garden, you look at those and you see the amount of greenfly caught in the web. It just shows you how effective they are at controlling some of our pest species, so they are a very effective natural control. And if we didn’t have spiders around, we’d have all sorts of things flying around. They have a really critical part to play in the ecological food web that is actually controlling the populations of lots of different vertebrates.”
Bee, when considering a world where there were no spiders, added:
“You’d probably have a far more aphids and flies around anywhere you went, including in the house as well. I mean, you’d have far more things flying around and crawling around in your house if the spiders weren’t there actually providing that sort of control mechanism.”
“They’re very effective at controlling some of these garden pests like greenfly and other things which gardeners might be concerned about, roses and whatever being covered in these pest species.
Rather than go out and spray them off – which isn’t kind from an environmental point of view – the spiders are really providing a really good natural control for these things, so it’s certainly worth looking after them and not destroying them.
Obviously, people who use pesticides, pesticides can affect spiders as well, so why spend money when spiders are doing a fairly effective job anyway?”
When it comes to gardeners as well as farmers, spiders are friends. They prevent crops from being demolished as well as diseases being spread by a wide variety of pest species.
Spiders have been used to control insect populations such as Israeli apple orchards and Chinese rice fields.
But instead of wiping them out, humans should collaborate with spiders and let them continue with their handwork, undisturbed.
Bee revealed to UNILAD how he cannot imagine “any circumstances” where it would be okay for a human to kill a spider:
“I mean, there’s been occasions where people report that they’ve been bitten by spiders and they’ve suffered some serious reaction. One or two species in the UK can bite, and their venom is quite potent. And if you are particularly sensitive, then you might react. But apart from that, there’s no reason at all. I mean, they’re not doing us any harm, so why do we need to actually destroy them? The benefit that they provide far outweighs any possible annoyance. They’re not aggressive. And they’re not going to start chasing you around. And if left alone, they just get on with their lives.”