Mosquito free anchorage/island?

[MSVAthenea]

Due to an aggressive eradication program, they're are no mosquitoes in Bermuda. Ahhhhhh .... last year you could shut and watch the sunsets without a cloud of deet in the way.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Cormorant]

I wonder how the spraying programs affect the rest of the ecological balance in areas like that. Sure, you kill off the damn mosquitos, but the sprays also kill marine invertebrates, and the mosquito larvae were food to fish, and the adult bugs were food for birds, etc. I'd rather slap a few mosquitos than live in an over-sanitized environment.

[ryon]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

I wonder how the spraying programs affect the rest of the ecological balance in areas like that. Sure, you kill off the damn mosquitos, but the sprays also kill marine invertebrates, and the mosquito larvae were food to fish, and the adult bugs were food for birds, etc. I'd rather slap a few mosquitos than live in an over-sanitized environment.

About three minutes of listening to the little buggers flying around the cabin, and I'm willing to accept massive collateral damage.

Southern California is much better mosquito-wise than it was ten or twenty years ago, but even so, one of our local sailors came down with West Nile virus recently. Pretty nasty stuff!

[MSVAthenea]

From what we were told, there is not massive spraying. They find the eggs and kill them and remove the standing water. Not good for what eats the mosquito, otherwise. ..

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[a64pilot]

Florida and the Caymans and I'm sure many other places would be essentially un-inhabitable without Mosquito eradication efforts, and Malaria and other diseases would be much worse
Usually insect growth regulators and other means are used to eliminate the Larva, you really want to eliminate them at that phase and not at the adult phase.
I'm familiar with it as the aircraft I help manufacture is used a lot for Mosquito control, the MRCU (Mosquito research and control unit) in the Cayman's flies our aircraft exclusively


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

I wonder how the spraying programs affect the rest of the ecological balance in areas like that. Sure, you kill off the damn mosquitos, but the sprays also kill marine invertebrates, and the mosquito larvae were food to fish, and the adult bugs were food for birds, etc. I'd rather slap a few mosquitos than live in an over-sanitized environment.

As someone who lived in Savannah for 24 years, the mosquito population is very much alive and well. The spraying just keeps the Mosquito's from blocking out the sun.

I use to go out on the deck and within seconds have a swarm (more then 50) of sketers around me. Every day, that was with spraying on land and marsh. For gnats, there is skin so soft from avon, which is the best at keeping the sand gnats off.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

As someone who lived in Savannah for 24 years, the mosquito population is very much alive and well. The spraying just keeps the Mosquito's from blocking out the sun.

I use to go out on the deck and within seconds have a swarm (more then 50) of sketers around me. Every day, that was with spraying on land and marsh. For gnats, there is skin so soft from avon, which is the best at keeping the sand gnats off.

I sat out quite a bit this past summer in the evenings and was not bit once by mosquitoes, on Wilmington Island. There are none to speak of..

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by Seymore

I sat out quite a bit this past summer in the evenings and was not bit once by mosquitoes, on Wilmington Island. There are none to speak of..

Gee and here the mosquito use to be the Georgia state bird. Least around Savannah. I use to get bit lots sitting out side, Would see 5 land on my leg at once. I don't miss that or the gnats.

[Cormorant]

I got curious and Googled around a bit. Here's an academic paper on the environmental effects of mosquito spraying. (Exhausting reading for all but the clinically overcurious. . . .)

http://www.fws.gov/cno/refuges/DonEd...itoControl.pdf

It's not all as bad as I had imagined. The anti-larvals are bacteria like Bti that are not broad-based toxins; they act on a narrow range of insect larvae and destroy the gut lining. The anti-adult sprays are pretty nasty chemicals -- pyrethroids and organophosphates -- but they have relatively short half-lives (several days). They can and do kill off non-target species . . . but perhaps not at the scale I had feared. I imagined all crabs and clams and fish and coral nearby dying off wholesale. That seems not to be the case.

This is also good reading for insomniacs:
Mosquito Information Website - Mosquito Management - Integrated Mosquito Management (IMM)

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

I got curious and Googled around a bit. Here's an academic paper on the environmental effects of mosquito spraying. (IMM)

I dunno about anti-larvals and organo-phophstes and all that. I do know that the tree frogs are just a-roaring away in the trees around the parking lot of the supermarket next door. So just about everybody's pretty happy with the mosquito control.