Walking Sticks Aren’t New to State

Re: “Bug Brouhaha,” Feb. 7.

I was a little surprised to read about the walking sticks. I can remember when I was 5, which was 24 years ago, and I sat in a nest of walking sticks, which numbered in the hundreds, at Piru Lake. They were in grassy and weedy areas. We used to look for them and let them crawl around on us.

The article says that there is little known about their diet and just what kind of plants they like, but I think if they were going to be a threat to our plant life that they would have made a move by now.

Seeing that these insects have been in California for at least 25 years, and probably longer than that, it seems they are in fact great little pets for these kids. They are fun to watch, because they do look just like a stick.

JULIE MEDINA, Piru