The Traps Fill Up
The traps started filling up within hours. It was disgusting. Every morning, Mark would check them and find three or four new victims stuck to the glue. He thought he was winning. “Look at that,” he said, pointing to a full trap. “We’re catching them. The numbers should go down soon.”
But the numbers didn’t go down. In fact, a week later, he saw another adult. Then another. The population wasn’t declining; it was stabilizing. The initial 40 survivors were reaching reproductive age. The cycle was about to go exponential. 40 bugs can turn into thousands in a terrifyingly short amount of time if unchecked, and store-bought sprays weren’t reaching the nest.