[Zorblack]

Hello everybody I'm new here and looking for suggestions.

I actually live in Tucson AZ and my house is being overrun with crickets, grasshoppers and Black Widows... ek. I would like to control these populations naturally and since I live in a fairly new neighborhood we are short of animals atm. I'd like to get a male and possible 1-2 females for pets and breeding. With the ultimate goal of releasing the babies,as adolescents, into my yard to control the problem. My question comes in, does anybody know where I can buy some nice healthy banded. My second question, Does anybody know if the banded will eat Black Widows? Crickets and such I can handle, the amount of black widows is disturbing and hoping the lizards will do more then just eat their food sources.

Thanks in advance

[aliceinwl]

I'd keep them as pets only. Arizona has laws against releasing captive animals (even natives) back into the wild. By releasing, you run the risk of introducing new parasites and diseases into the resident population as well as foreign genes if the geckos are not from local stock.

It is also unlikely that the geckos will ever reach sufficient population densities in your yard to make much of a difference in invertebrate numbers. I'm not sure how effective they'll be against black widows; only full size adults would have a shot at even a midsize widow. If they get tangled up in the webbing, they could easily become a meal for the spider.

-Alice