NEW YORK, May 29 (Reuters) -- America will face a mosquito invasion of epic proportions this summer, say experts. And they say there's very little we can do about it.
The problem lies in this past winter's heavy snows, along with heavy spring rainfall. "We've certainly had wet conditions right along, which bodes well for the mosquitoes and not so well for the people who don't like them," according to Maine Department of Conservation entomologist Dick Dearborn, speaking to USA Today.
Mosquitoes lay their eggs in shallow freshwater pools. If those pools dry up, populations of the pesky insects decline. But inclement weather ensured that the 1997 mosquito-breeding season was especially successful.
The Pacific Northwest is experiencing a very warm May and the concurrent melting of a heavy snowpack -- "the perfect setting for mosquitoes," according to Stephen Ingalls, president of the Northwest Mosquito and Vector Control Association.
The same water that brought floods to Midwesterners should also keep them scratching well into the fall, experts say. And while the Northeast experienced normal spring rainfall, temperatures have been too cool to dry out those damp mosquito nurseries.
Ingalls admits that mosquito-eradication efforts, usually aimed at destroying eggs before they hatch, have limited effectiveness. "(Mosquitoes are) very resilient. No matter how hard we try to keep them from coming back, they keep coming back."
Here in the United States, mosquitoes are most often an irritant, rather than a serious threat to health. The most dangerous mosquito-borne disease, malaria, rarely strikes U.S. residents. But a few cases of the sometimes fatal, mosquito-borne brain infection known as Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) were discovered in Rhode Island and Connecticut last year.
For most of us, that buzzing sound will be the harbinger of nothing more than an itchy bump on the skin. Experts point out that mosquitoes are most active at dusk and dawn, and are more attracted to dark colors. Covering up with clothing, and spraying on mosquito repellent still remain the best ways to keep the critters away.
SOURCE: USA Today (May 27, 1997, p. 5A)
