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August 1, 2011

General Insect Repellent

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:29 pm

The difficulty with all-purpose insect repellent is that no one insect repellent will repel all insects. There are so many different species of insects that nothing will deter them all. Some insects in some areas for example have been especially focused, like bed bugs in New York, and so they have developed a tolerance to repellents that does not exist elsewhere.

This is not such a problem if you know the area where you are staying, because you will know the most prevalent insect pests in your area, but what about if you go on holiday? You may take a box of your favourite mosquito ointment to Acapulco on your dream vacation only to find that there are no mosquitoes there but that the sand flies are murderous.

Mosquitoes are not really difficult in Scotland, but midges are in the summer and mosquito repellent does not have an effect on midges (or sand flies) even though they get up to the same type of monkey business. The key is local information. Before you go anywhere attempt to do some research on local problem insects.

In fact, unless you know that your favourite mosquito repellent works where you are going, there is not a lot of point taking it with you, since the locals will already have the best repellents for their own specific local problem insects. The only potential exception is a cream with a high percentage of DEET.

It may be illegal where you are going to sell a cream containing over 25% DEET, but you feel safer with 50%. I know that I would feel far less at risk with 50% DEET, if I were going to Gambia, where the world’s most toxic mosquitoes lives.

Another pesticide that kills pretty much all insects (except bed bugs) is permethrin, but you might not be able to buy it where you are going. The difference between DEET and permethrin is that DEET repels mosquitoes by confusing their senses – basically, you slip under their RADAR – but permethrin kills insects.

This confusion works for plenty of insects that perceive their prey by carbon dioxide emissions like ticks and possibly bed bugs. Permethrin is not so effectual against bed bugs because they have a waxy coat which does not allow the chemical to actually reach their skin, where it would kill them.

This waxy coat can be removed, but you will not have time if on vacation to do it. The overall best answer to most, but not all insect pests is putting DEET at about 25-35% on your skin, which will give you five to eight hours protection and spaying permethrin on your clothes. Permethrin can last up to six months and can survive several washes.

If you are sitting outdoors it is a good tactic to hang up a bug zapper – the kind that has an ultraviolet lamp inside a highly charged electric grill. A handheld racquet style bug zapper is also good for clearing a tent or bedroom of a few mosquitoes or flies before retiring.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with finding a home remededy for mosquito bites. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Getting Rid of Mosquito Bites.

July 28, 2011

Is Vegetarianism On A Budget Possible?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 3:33 pm

The household budget makes up a substantial part of most families’ outlay and of that the largest part of the bill is for food. Meat probably makes up the largest part of that food bill too, so you would be forgiven for thinking that you could save a lot of money by giving up meat. You would suppose that becoming a vegetarian might save you some money.

However, that is not always the case. You can save money by taking up vegetarianism on a budget, but it does not necessarily work out that in that way without some work on behalf of the vegetarian. The fact is that vegetables, on their own, often appear boring to someone who used to enjoy a good steak or barbecued spare ribs, so food manufacturers have come up with all sorts of accoutrements to liven up vegetarian dishes yet these are not usually all that cheap.

Even some of the fairly regular vegetarian staple foodstuffs like nuts are not necessarily cheap, especially if you like variety. After all, you can not just eat salted peanuts, not that all that salt would be good for you anyway but when you start to buy macademia nuts or pistachio nuts for a change, you will find them more expensive than meat.

Eating out at vegetarian restaurants is also pretty expensive, because the market is relatively small. There are not many restaurants that refuse to cook meat and the percentage of the populace that is vegetarian is still fairly small. This all leads to higher charges, yet that is if you can find a vegetarian restaurant outside a large city. A sandwich bar is likely the nearest thing you will get to it in most towns but there will be meat on the premises too.

The cost of vegetarian food is exacerbated if you insist on eating organically grown food. Eating just organically grown food can add 30% to your food bill making vegetarianism on a budget impossible. So what can you do to trim down the price of your food bill if you are a vegetarian?

The first thing to do is decide if you really believe the whole organic story. Some do, some do not. Either way, you could endeavor increasing the costly vegetables in your garden, your greenhouse or in an allotment. If you can not do that, you could offer to purchase these vegetables from friends, if they will grow them for you. Many pensioners take up gardening and numerous pensioners would become happy of the extra earnings.

Another way is to shop at farms or farmers’ markets. I know that time is valuable, but if you can just go to such a place once a week, you could buy enough food for three or four days without it deteriorating. Buying in bulk like that should become cheaper as well. A sack of potatoes will last a month and it is far cheaper than purchasing a few pounds at a time from the supermarket.

Another method of reducing costs is not to purchase your fresh fruit and vegetables from supermarkets at all, because it easy to be enticed to buy the latest fad fruit or vegetable from halfway around the world at an exaggerated cost ‘just for a change’. Stick to locally grown fruit and vegetables that are in season and you might just about manage vegetarianism on a budget.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now concerned with low carb vegetarian recipes. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at http://vegetariancasserolerecipes.com

July 27, 2011

How To Care For Your Fish Pond

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 5:36 pm

Do you like the sound of moving water? Do you find the sound relaxing? Well, you can easily produce the sound of running water in your own garden. You can put in a fish pond or a water garden. So, if you think that your garden needs landscaping, it might be a good idea to consider a fish pond or water garden.

People think that a fish pond takes lot of looking after, but that is not inevitably the case. The fact is that the larger the fish pond, the less effort you have to put into it. This is because a large pond can create its own ecosystem, whereas a small fish pond requires help.

The ways that you can help a small fish pond be a decent environment for your fish are as follows:

Pond Filters – use a pond filter with a good pump. Do not forget that you could get a solar powered pump. It will save on the environment and on your wallet. You should use a pond filter on a small pond, because the ecosystem cannot deal with all the plant waste of a small ornamental pond on its own. A pond pump will supply the filtration system and a waterfall or fountain if you wish.

Your pond filtration system should be left running twenty-four hours a day, but you can not just set it and forget it. Check that the pump is running daily and keep the filter as clean as needed for it to do its job. You may find that you have to clean it two or three times a week in the summer and autumn but only once a week in the winter and spring.

Leaf Netting: stop leaves from clogging up your pond in the autumn. The net should be suspended a foot or so above the pond to stop autumn leaves falling into the water and rotting.

Feeding: all fish should be fed fish food, not bread or scraps. Some fish ought to have specific fish food in order to preserve their colour. When you buy your fish, the salesperson should inform you what they eat. In general, the larger the pond the less trouble feeding becomes as they will eat natural food like insects, grubs, larvae and flies.

Fish need less food in the winter when they become semi-dormant and live off the fat stores that they built up in the warmer months, so give food often in the summer and autumn, but less often in the winter. You must check to see if surplus food is left floating on the surface.

Winter: make sure that there is a hole in the ice so that the water can take in oxygen and the fish can feed if they wish to. You can buy a floating de-icer or some people float a round football in a hoola-hoop, which seems to do the trick unless the temperature gets very low.

In fact, the hoola-hoop is a good idea all year round really. If you place the food in the hoop, it remains in one place and you can see if you have given too much. It also makes a nice site to see all the fish feeding in a shoal.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site right away for some extra special deals.

Your Koi Pond After A Storm

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 12:37 pm

A storm can be stressful for your outdoor fish, especially for large koi carp, which, being large, possibly do not have many places to hide. However, if you have designed your koi fish pond well, you will have taken this into account when your constructed the pond. Likewise, the pond should be deep enough for your fish to be able to get well below the choppy surface layer.

If you prepared for the storm, you probably put a net over the fish pond, so the first thing you ought to do after the storm is clear up any fallen debris and take away the net, so that you can get a good look at your fish and what happened to them. They may be a bit stressed, so move unhurriedly and try hard not to frighten them. Stress is a killer in the animal world as well as in ours.

Did you take the added safeguard of sand-bagging the rim of your pond to stop it over-flowing and the fish swimming away? If so, take away the sand bags, so that you can get a better look.

Now you can get a good look at the upheaval, if there is any. Use a net to quietly skim off any leaves that have blown under the netting and onto the pond. If any plants have been uprooted, put them back where they should be. In general, put the pond back as it used to be, so that the fish feel at home. Again, move unhurriedly and try not to put your fish under any more stress.

If you have to carry out major structural repairs, you could place your koi in a child’s plastic paddling pool until you can sort the issue out. Put the pool in a shaded area and fold the netting over it several times so that the fish can not get out and cats and birds cannot get in. If you can aerate the pool with a pump so much the better.

Put a few plants in there with them for cover and feed in moderation. if the repairs will take a long time, you could ask your local pet store to take them away for a week or whatever. You will need to pay board and lodgings, but it is preferable to losing your prized koi carp.

Once any repairs have been carried out, you ought to check the water quality, which could have been changed by debris falling into the pond or by your repairs. Rain, especially acid rain, can have quite an effect, particularly if it rained for a long time.

First check the water for nitrates. If the levels are incorrect (see the testing kit for details), you ought to stabilize them. If the levels are extremely high, first remove the plants from the water.

Then test the KH levels. If they are low, say, below 100, then you could add a cup of baking soda per 1,000 gallons of water and check again. Whatever you do, the quickest way to de-stress your fish is to reinstate their environment to what it used to be with clean water to swim in.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is now involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

July 25, 2011

Dog Crates – Overview

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Alfred Tanya @ 2:27 pm

There’s a wide selection of kinds of crates you could purchase for your dog. Here we provide you with an outline of the major sorts you’ll be able to discover on-line or within your nearby pet store.

1. Solid Plastic Crates

Solid plastic crates are really powerful and remarkably sturdy, this indicates which you dog might be kept secure whilst you’re travelling either by auto or plane. The actual crate should be approved by the airline in case you wish to transport your dog by plane. Plastic crates are extremely uncomplicated to help keep clean. One of the drawbacks of solid crates, on the other hand, is they’re not foldable, so when they’re not in use they are able to take up a good deal of space.

2. Aluminum Crates

This kind of crate could be foldable or fixed. Aluminum crates, becoming so powerful, do make great dog enclosures. Aluminum crate don’t rust, valuable aspect if you’re out and about in all weathers along with your dog. Your dog will come across he gets a lot of air flowing via the crate as it really is nicely ventilated. He will also have a fantastic view of what exactly is happening outside the crate. Aluminum crates are usually employed in by veterinarians, giving a secure and secure environment for your dog on their visits. These crates, as all crates, is often utilised as a permanent “den” for your dog at whilst inside your household. Dog breeders locate that this sort of crate gives exceptional facilities for their dogs.

3. Dog Tents

Somewhat comparable to soft crates, dog tents are light and fold as much as take really small space so they’re incredibly effortless to transport. Dog tents aren’t truly appropriate for puppies or dogs which are not residence trained. They’re not suggested as a secure indicates for transporting your dog when travelling within your automobile, they do not give the secure structure you actually need to have in case of a automobile crash.

4. Soft Crate

Once again these are incredibly lightweight and could be folded up fairly simply. Soft crates permit your dog to really feel an awesome sense of security whilst still giving your dog great airflow and visibility. Soft crates aren’t truly appropriate, and as a result not suggested, if your dog has a tendency to chew or dig.

5. Wire Crates

Wire crates created of powerful wire mesh, most beneficial when they’re foldable and take up small space when not in use. Wire crates are also wonderful for carrying your dog whilst travelling. The wire crates are a great deal heavier when compared to the other forms of crates but this a terrific asset when transporting your dog inside the auto. Very good airflow, as the crate is typically open on all sides and terrific visibility for you and your dog. Once more wire crates are widely utilized in by breeders and veterinary practices. You might see wire crates significantly in evidence in the event you check out any dog show this is due to the fact they give spectators such a great view of all of the distinct dogs. You are able to boost the comfort and safety of wire crates by adding pads and covers.

Please visit our articles about Dog Beds or Dog Bed

July 23, 2011

Raccoons – The Masked Thieves in Your Home

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 11:53 am

Raccoons, they are so cute to watch from the inside of your home. However, when humans come into contact with them in their natural habitat, it is self-evident that they are not an animal one would want for a pet. They are mammals and are known to be nocturnal and omnivorous.

Now, because they are omnivores, they are scavengers too. So they will discover a way into your garden and patio. If a raccoon finds dog or cat food on a backyard patio, it will not hesitate to eat it.

Once a raccoon knows where to get a free meal, it will return for more. In fact, a raccoon with bring its family with it to enjoy a free meal. The raccoon is most likely to consume nuts such as walnuts and acorns in its own natural habitat. If, on the other hand, a raccoon strays into a suburban setting, like the backyard of a home, it will eat whatever is on the ground or in a rubbish container.

The raccoon is known for scrambling into, and overturning, waste cans to search for waste food for their next meal. Raccoons were first spotted in a city in Cincinnati in the 1920?s and then were seen in such cities as San Francisco, Chicago and Toronto in the 1950?s.

The raccoon is chiefly to be found in North American states and territories such as Panama, Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica., but also in Europe too.

Raccoons have a decent memory and have been studied by a variety of scientists past and present. With their memory and intelligence, it is no wonder that they can remember where they discovered their last meal and will return to that same area.

When a raccoon knows where to return for a meal, it will, more likely than not, endeavor to get into the home it is stealing food from. If a raccoon is clever enough to know where to return for a meal, with family in tow, it will find a route to into a home and search out a food source.

When a raccoon is discovered in the backyard, or inside a home, it is not sensible to try to catch it. The best a homeowner can do is shoo the raccoon and its family away and call the animal control in your city. As charming and furry as raccoons seem, they are not to be touched or picked up.

A raccoon is a wild animal and will do whatever it takes to protect itself and its family. It is also vital to realize that raccoons carry sickness. A raccoon carries rabies and will pass it on to a pet or human by a bite. The rabies virus is in the raccoon?s saliva.

As the raccoon becomes ?comfortable? visiting the outside of a home, it will attempt to get inside if it sees a way in through a back door or attic window. As stated above, raccoons are intelligent and fantastic natural climbers. They will have no problem climbing up the side of a home, look for an open window into an attic and climb in.

If a raccoon has its ?kits? in tow, they will all find their way into the attic and create not just a lot of noise, but will do their utmost to get into the home to look for their next meal.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with distemper in raccoons. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Distemper Vaccines

July 20, 2011

Planning Your Own Backyard Pond

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 5:10 pm

If you have a backyard or back garden, you can have a fish pond. They are not expensive to build and if you do it yourself it is obviously even cheaper. You can make your own pond pretty easily, you just have to keep a few points in mind when you plan where you are going to put it and how big it will be.

A backyard fish pond is fantastic for all kinds of households. Tending a backyard fish pond is not difficult and the mild exercise can be good for you. it is also therapeutic to watch the fish and other pond life going about their routine business and children will learn a bit more about nature,

It is important to plan your pond before you pick up your spade and the first thing to think about is where you are going to place it. Try not to put it under a tree or you will be dredging leaves out of your pond every day in autumn. Do not put the pond at the lowest point in your garden or it may overflow when it rains and your fish may swim away which means that you will need to sandbag it before it rains every time..

The noon sun can be very hot, so it would help if the pond had at least partial shade between 11 AM and 2 PM. If your locale is subject to freezing then the pond should be 30-45 inches deep for at least 4 m2 or 36 ft2, although if the winter can be really severe, it is best to seek advice from a neighbourhood pet shop. Have a look at the pre-formed fish ponds in a garden or pond centre to see if you like those shapes and sizes. If you do not, then you can buy a butyl pond liner (a sheet of rubber) and design your own pond.

After you have dug out your backyard fish pond and put your pre-formed or butyl liner into the hole, you should finish off the pond’s edge with either brick, block or stone. Use similar materials to build a few caves in the pond itself for the fish to take cover in. You can also anchor the fountain and any under-water lighting. Fill the pond with water, but do not put any living thing into it yet. Put the rest of your equipment in.

You will require a general purpose pump to send water to the pond filter, which should be two or three feet higher than the water level. The water will then have to pass through a filter to remove plant debris and faeces and under a UV light to kill bacteria. It can return to the pond via a waterfall, which will help oxygenate the water as will the fountain.

After a week, the water will have lost the chemicals like chlorine which the water company puts into it and you can buy plants and fish, but do not rush into it. You may want to build a few shelves to put flower pots on for the aquatic plants that have need of them.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with fish pond accessories. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some special deals.

Studying Insects

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 3:58 pm

The study of insects is known as entomology. Entomology is a sub-section of biology and is one of the oldest sciences. Man has studied the habits of insects, normally with a view to eradicating them, since the first plague of locusts landed on primitive farmers’ crops tens of thousands of years ago. However, entomology was not really recognized and learned as a science until the Sixteenth Century.

Entomology has had many famous devotees but the most famous was Charles Darwin. More recent entomologists are Karl von Frisch the Nobel Prize winner for medicine in 1973 and E. O. Wilson the two time Pulitzer prize winner.

Entomologists are also often credited with helping solve murders by studying the insects that are found on and in the dead body. This is very possible and not only a trick used in Hollywood films.

The first thing to realise is that not all bugs are insects. For instance, spiders are not insects, but numerous entomologists are not so strict and have an interest in arachnids (spiders), worms, slugs and snails.

All insects pass through a number of stages of life, but there are two kinds of insect development ’simple metamorphosis’ and ‘complete metamorphosis’.

The first sort includes most beetles and bugs like bed bugs. They are born as eggs and hatch into larvae (nymphs), which, if not perfect copies of their parents do look a lot like them

The second sort are also born as eggs, also hatch into larvae, but they look nothing like their parents – so dissimilar in fact that if you do not know what they are, you could not imagine. The larva then grows into a pupa when it appears to become dormant, this is not the case though, there is plenty going on and when it comes out from the pupal stage it is unrecognizable. Butterflies are like this.

If you would like to study insects, you have to focus because there are at least 1.3 million species of insects that we have found so far and there are lots more to name and classify.

You would be forgiven for thinking that these unknown insects, worms, slugs and beetles et cetera are all in remotest Africa or in deep jungles, but last year a carnivorous slug was discovered in a backyard in the centre of Cardiff in the UK.

In order to study insects, you usually have to catch them without killing them. This means nets and traps. it is simple enough to get a butterfly net (or fishing net) and you can create your own pitfall traps for ground beetles. You will also need a good book to help you classify your find and a magnifying glass to be able to better see it.

One word of caution though: you may think that there are too many insects and that no one really cares about them, but this is not the case. There are numerous insects in every country that are protected and you will be breaking the law by taking them or hurting them, so the first thing to do is find out which ones you may study and which ones it is better to leave alone.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with finding a home remededy for mosquito bites. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Getting Rid of Mosquito Bites.

July 15, 2011

Insects And Their Bites

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 4:22 pm

The majority of insects will defend themselves if they feel threatened. This is fairly amazing when you think about how small insects are compared with the mammalian interloper. Most insects will only atttack if you wander into their territory. There are also insects that have to drink blood and they actively seek their prey. This type includes insects such as mosquitoes and fleas.

Ants form the largest section of biters. All ants will try to bite if they feel the need, but most black ants just do not have big enough mandibles (or jaws) to get a grip. The big exception in all ant and ant-like varieties are the soldiers, which have huge mandibles compared to the workers.

Red ants can bite with or without poison and some sting too. Formic acid is their normal chemical weapon. Some ants inject it, which is what we feel when we get bitten by red ants, but other ants spray it into the eyes of its aggressors.

The most agonizing sting of any insect is delivered by the Bullet Ant of Central and South America. The Bullet Ant’s sting has the top rating possible on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. The scale goes from zero to four; zero being painless (to humans) through two for bees and wasps to four for excruciating pain.

The Fire Ant, which is famous for its painful bite ranks a 1.2 on this scale, but level 1.8 is likened to having a staple shot into your cheek. The European honey bee is on level two and the Red Harvester Ant is on level three.

Some bites and stings are not so high on the scale but can still be fatal. The Jack Jumper Ant is in this category and people, especially hypersensitives, have been known to die from Fire Ant stings, which inject piperidine alkaloids instead of formic acid.

The mandibles of the Trap Jaw Ant are the fastest closing jaws in the animal kingdom. They have been measured at 230 KPH (143 MPH). Another extraordinary ant defence is carried out by a Malaysian species: it ejects its stomach unto its aggressor. The stomach acids contain acetophones which completely immobilize insects. Unfortunately, the soldier dies because its stomach has been torn out.

Bees, ants and wasps are all related in the order known as Hymenoptera. Bees and wasps just sting although some wasps do have large jaws as well. One definition of a wasp is ‘any insect of the order Hymenoptera that is neither a bee nor an ant’ (Wikipedia).

Not all wasps are black and yellow. There are not many insects that do not have a type of wasp preying on it, which makes them very important in the biocontrol of harmful insects. A lot of wasps do not sting their prey to kill it for food, they sting it to paralyze it.

When paralyzed, the wasp lays her eggs in the prey, which becomes fresh food for her young when they hatch out. This is usually the only time that a wasp eats flesh in its whole life, because adult wasps eat nectar and honey like bees.

When a bee stings it releases pheromones which encourage other bees nearby to sting as well. The most aggressive stingers though are vespid wasps (common black and yellow wasps).

Fleas, ticks and bed bugs, unlike mosquitoes, really feed on blood, that is they use it for food, whereas the mosquito uses it as the ‘white’ of her eggs. There have been times in our history when losing a few drops of blood to a flea was not the worst thing about being bitten by them. They also carried the Plague, which wiped out a large percentage of the population of Europe a number of times.

Spiders and scorpions make up the causes of the majority of insect bites but they are comparatively rare.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with finding a home remededy for mosquito bites. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Getting Rid of Mosquito Bites.

Arbovirus Encephalitis In New York In 1999

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:47 pm

In the late summer of 1999, there was an epidemic of encephalitis and meningitis in New York. Initially, all the victims came from an eight square kilometer region centered on Queens and the Bronx.

Later, it spread further, although there were merely 59 cases and seven deaths – all in older individuals. 677 individuals were tested in the original survey, 19 of which tested positive for meningoencephalitis.

Going by the size of the population of New York, it was determined that between 3,500 and 13,000 people (average: 8,200) had been infected with West Nile virus. There were almost certainly far more than that, but serious indications usually only show in the young and the old.

Those in the in-between age group almost certainly thought that they had a bad cold, which means that fewer than one percent of victims displayed severe neurological indications.

At first, it was wondered whether this outbreak could be the result of an act of terrorism, but others suspected mosquitoes. Investigation concentrated on St. Louis encephalitis. However, when it was thought to check for West Nile virus, the number of cases increased.

The reason for the outbreak was soon confirmed to be a West Nile-like virus based on the identification of viral infection in human, avian, and mosquito samples.

This had not been expected because the New York outbreak was the first time that West Nile virus had been seen in the Developed world.

Then recent bird deaths were remembered. Large numbers of wild birds, especially crows, had died recently in the region and there were deaths at the Bronx Zoo of exotic birds as well.

Examination of the corpses of these birds showed traces of encephalitis which resembled West Nile virus (WNV). When doctors knew what to look for, they discovered comparable traits in the brains of the dead humans

The authorities instantly initiated widespread measures to control the population of Culex pipiens, the mosquito in the region that specializes in attacking birds. The public was informed and helplines were established – by the end of September over 150,000 calls had been made.

The local authorities continued to spray and handed out 300,000 aerosols of DEET and 750,000 public health leaflets, which recommended tidying up the garden, not going out at dusk or dawn and covering up bare skin.

WNV is an arbovirus (arthropod-borne virus), which means that it is transmitted to humans by arthropods (insects), normally the tick or the mosquito. Previously, WNV had only been seen in Uganda, where it was first discovered and in isolated cases in Europe and South Africa.

A report concluded that it was “unclear whether the virus that caused this outbreak is a previously identified strain of WNV or a new variant”, however now recent evidence seems to suggest that a new mosquito – a hybrid of C. pipiens – living in the New York metro was to blame.

This is still not definite, but if it is the case, then the whole world ought to take care, because the New York ‘hybrid’ is related to the London Underground mosquito which inhabits nearly every underground railway station on the planet.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with finding a home remededy for mosquito bites. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Getting Rid of Mosquito Bites.

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