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Now, if you’re from the South (that would be the United States of America south), you are all too familiar with fire ants but just in case you’re not, here are a few facts about them…

Fire ants create huge underground burrows called a colony where they live, work and procreate. They are a social insect where each individual ant has a function and a job. They stay pretty busy unless its dry or cold in which case they hibernate.

Fire ants are intensely protective of their colony and will attack in large numbers with no regard of self when the colony is threatened or even if a threat is perceived.

Over our Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I went to Savannah, GA for a dog show. This is one of the few remaining shows in the US that is held outdoors and it’s in a pretty little park outside the city. Savannah is on the coast of Georgia and this park is bordered by an inland waterway, so there are times and places when it’s under water or very boggy. We’ve been suffering a drought for the past 3 years in the South and Savannah has not gone unscathed, so the park has been fairly dry.

Until this weekend.

This weekend saw rain. And more rain. And yet more rain — it was like someone turned the handle on the Hansgrohe and just left — for a total of nearly 6 inches of rain by Saturday.

That meant that the ground was pretty saturated.

The show committee was prepared with bales of hay and dutifully put the hay down in the wettest of spots. That helped somewhat with the mushy ground although you and your dog got pretty muddy gaiting around the rings.

What the committee didn’t count on was the fire ants.

From the fire ant perspective, the rain was flooding their colonies, so they felt like they were under attack. When they came out of the ground they found all these people and dogs meandering over their turf, so what else were they supposed to do? They were angry and frightened over being flooded out and so they attacked the totally innocent of any ant-wronging people and dogs.

Doesn’t this behavior sound familiar?

Don’t gangs do this same thing?

Let’s look at the similarities.

• Gangs are social entities.
• They live in “underground” warrens often called slums
• Each gang member has a rank and a job.
• When a threat to the gang territory is perceived, the gang swarms out of their neighborhood and goes on attack without regard for self.
• Many innocents are harmed in these attacks.

Does fire ant bait work on gangs?

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