9 ms·

Disney's mosquito control program

186 points by dom96 4y ago

scarmig 4y ago
My assumption before reading: barrels and barrels of pesticides. Article: barrels of pesticides, yes, but also well-designed landscape architecture. I'm curious what's the bigger factor. Also, does layering the approaches have a bigger effect than you'd expect if you summed the effects individually, or a smaller one?
- dom96 4y ago
  It may be barrels of pesticides, but at least it seems they opt for natural pesticide (liquid garlic/peppermint) instead of any toxic (to humans) substances.
  - whizzter 4y ago
    Might've been less nice pesticies in the past, but I guess awareness of possible lawsuits from employees has forced their hand.
    - mathgeek 4y ago
      Do you have a source for that conjecture? Was there a specific new outlet that raised the issue previously?
  - scarmig 4y ago
    That made me look a bit more into it. As far as I can tell, garlic (in non-detectable to human concentrations) is used, but there are also references to non-specific pesticides and growth regulators, which they'd naturally emphasize over scary sounding chemicals. It seems to be a genuinely impressive and comprehensive (and, from experience, effective) program, but it still likely uses some "toxic" pesticides. I figure if mosquitoes could be controlled by water mixed with garlic, we could be making incredible and scalable progress against e.g. malaria in Africa using that approach. Other methods Disney uses include releasing predators of mosquitoes regularly and sampling mosquito population genetics using CO2 traps to proactively anticipate new problems.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Look at the wording closely: it says "rumored to be." That's corporate-speak for "we're lying." Guarantee if Disney were using natural pesticides, they'd be shouting their lungs out about it, especially in what appears to be a corporate-paid-for blogspam article.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  As a central Florida native I have little doubt that the landscape architecture plays a big role. Mosquitoes breed and multiply incredibly quick in this climate. Every city sprays regularly to keep populations lower, but they are still around.
  - silisili 4y ago
    I lived and traveled all around central florida, and don't remember ever really seeing a mosquito much less getting bit by one. The spray and chemicals they put in the gray water work wonders. In the Midwest, those suckers eat you alive. No body of water or pool in sight, but summer nights you wouldn't go out without bathing in Off.
    - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
      I went boating in the Everglades in August last year for 3 days and I haven't seen a mosquito. Not even one.
      - fuzzfactor 4y ago
        >My assumption before reading: barrels and barrels of pesticides. >I went boating in the Everglades in August last year for 3 days and I haven't seen a mosquito. Not even one. The unspoiled Everglades had tons of mosquitos. Before they built Disney World that was a hell of a place to get a flat tire on the turnpike. Day or night it was just as bad as the Everglades, and if you didn't have loads of repellent more mosquitos would be circling for a landing spot than there was room for on any bare skin. Most likely almost all of the tonnage that was applied by all parties, of the most effective pesticides available, were dispersed in the area in the decades since. With the much larger human population today still using ordinary toxic stuff widely on their homes and lawns, maybe this helps make it easier to use non-toxic pest control within the tourist attractions.
  - CSMastermind 4y ago
    I live in central Florida near Disney, and I can't remember seeing a mosquito. They were ubiquitous in the North during the summer when I was growing up but around here they seem to have been all but eliminated, at least in the populated areas. Now other bugs are everywhere around here. It took a big adjustment to get used to just how many insects there were everywhere and how quickly they'll take hold without proper precautions. In my experience ticks are a much bigger pest, especially if you like hiking.
- specialp 4y ago
  Eliminating mosquito breeding grounds is the most effective approach of mosquito control. They do not travel very far, have a massive reproductive ability, and have a relatively short lifespan. Larvacides in standing water do stop larvae but not adults. If you do have standing water that is a necessity then there are larvacides that can treat the water with bacteria for a safe effective treatment. It must be done often though. Insecticides do kill adult mosquitos and repel them but still if there is an area nearby they can breed in, they will be replaced very fast.
  - ip26 4y ago
    Turbidity is another good strategy with necessary water.
- elihu 4y ago
  I was going to guess that they used something like industrial-scale mosquito dunks. You put them in water and they release a live bacteria (bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israeliensis) that specifically attacks mosquito larvae and is harmless to everything else as far as we know. https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/ https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/ Mosquito fish are also effective, and the article says they use those. Dragonflies are another very efficient predator of mosquitoes. I could imagine Disney World maintaining dragonfly ponds around their properties. Though I guess if you're good enough at controlling mosquito larvae then the dragonflies might migrate elsewhere where they have more to eat. (It'd be an interesting strategy for Disney to grow species of mosquitoes that don't attack humans and releasing them around their park, just to attract more mosquito-eating predators.)
robbrown451 4y ago
They need little robots/drones to scout about at night for larva and kill them. True, this will take a lot of robots. But that's ok, since during the daytime when the guests are there, the robots can go back to the fab shop and make more robots. That should get the last few percent. I can't imagine anything going wrong with this idea. You're welcome!
- acdha 4y ago
  I keep wishing this wasn’t vaporware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Good chuckle imagining that as the laser light show every night... title alone.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Just sell me popcorn and play Star Wars space combat music.
  - Jeff_Brown 4y ago
    Way better than a bug zapper! Those are commercially available, somewhat popular, indiscriminate killers of any small species that crosses the relevant boundary, and hazardous to humans -- they typically explode the insects, releasing parasites and pathogens that manage to stay alive.
    - echelon 4y ago
      > they typically explode the insects, releasing parasites and pathogens that manage to stay alive. This seems dubious to me. I can't imagine it would aerosolize, and even droplets would need to be close to a human to infect them. Is there a citation for this?
      - 4y ago
Hedepig 4y ago
> If you're from a country without mosquitoes- like the United Kingdom- I wish this was true, but they certainly exist in this country
SapporoChris 4y ago
This subject has come up before. Why Disney World doesn't have mosquitoes(https://www.greenmatters.com/p/why-no-mosquitoes-disney-world https://www.greenmatters.com/p/why-no-mosquitoes-disney-worl...) 262 points|jbonniwell|12 months ago|125 comments The Fascinating Reason Why There Are No Mosquitoes at Disney World(https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-are-no-mosquitoes-in-disney-world https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-...) 25 points|elorant|2 years ago|3 comments Why There Are No Mosquitoes at Disney World(http://mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-are-no-mosquitoes-in-disney-world http://mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-are-n...) 3 points|amelius|3 years ago|0 comments You Never See Mosquitoes at Disney World(https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-never-see-mosquitoes-disney-202846868.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-never-see-mosquitoes-dis...) 2 points|redm|1 year ago|0 comments Why Are There No Mosquitoes at Disney World? (2018)(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_30jPKzWdN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_30jPKzWdN0)
- mr-pink 4y ago
  instead of linking four articles why not give the answer? trained rodents nanotechnology lasers herds of chameleons
  - daniel_iversen 4y ago
    I think the comment is a bit hostile, and there's merit in linking to past conversations, that said I for one would love for the first comment to be a TL:DR; comment!
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    The chickens are for monitoring viruses being transmitted by the mosquitoes, there aren’t enough of them around there to realistically make a dent in the population.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    And no standing water.
  - trident5000 4y ago
Reason077 4y ago
> "If you're from a country without mosquitoes- like the United Kingdom" The article suggests that there are no mosquitos in the UK, but this is not correct. The UK has over 30 native mosquito species, and many of them bite humans. One urban-adapted species, Culex molestus, is even known as the "London Underground Mosquito": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito
- easytiger 4y ago
  Yea. I've been "eaten alive" as is the vernacular by the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen in London. Horrendous. Also hard to avoid unless you live at height
  - dom96 4y ago
    Interesting, I've lived in the UK for many years, have heard many times that it is mosquito-free and haven't run into mosquitoes in all my time here. I would still say that the UK has many orders of magnitude less mosquitoes than other countries, from personal experience at least. In any case, the article has been fixed to say "Iceland" instead.
    - ISL 4y ago
      Iceland doesn't seem to have any/many mosquitoes, but yowza, does it have midges (especially, as the article below says, near Myvatn). https://icelandmag.is/article/are-there-midges-iceland#:~:text=Answer%3A%20There%20are%20two%20types,by%20avoiding%20rivers%20and%20lakes https://icelandmag.is/article/are-there-midges-iceland#:~:te....
    - scarmig 4y ago
      Why doesn't Iceland have mosquitoes? Greenland does.
      - dagurp 4y ago
        the theory is that Iceland has so many fluctuations in temperature that the mosquitos are not able to complete a whole breeding cycle
bufordtwain 4y ago
I would have been more convinced if the article hadn't included an ad for a Disney world vacation.
drc500free 4y ago
> Avoiding stagnant water even goes as far as when it comes to the plants that are chosen to grow inside the parks. Took me about 5 tries to wrap my mind around this sentence structure.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
  Kind of a garden path sentence. Could just remove "when it comes to" and the sentence would read much better.
- ghostpepper 4y ago
  Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?
tkgally 4y ago
I remember wondering the same thing twenty-five years ago, when I lived not far from Tokyo Disneyland. I took the kids there once in August, when the Tokyo area is hot and humid and insects abound, especially in the evenings. At Disneyland, not only were there no mosquitos; there also weren’t any moths, gnats, or other flying insects. I also remember noticing some cute birds flying around freely within the park. When we left and headed for home, a short train ride away, bugs swarmed around the street lights as usual and the birds were pigeons and crows and other less pleasant species. Tokyo Disneyland’s wildlife control program must have extended to more than just mosquitos.
- xattt 4y ago
  > Tokyo Disneyland’s wildlife control program must have extended to more than just mosquitos. Between this comment and one part of the thread above your post, this makes me think that “broad-spectrum pest management” is an inadvertent side effect of the methods used by Disney.
dmix 4y ago
Apparently fish are used quite often for this purpose: > The name "Mosquitofish" was given because the fish eats mosquito larvae, and has been used more than any other fishes for the biological control of mosquitoes. > Mosquitofish were introduced directly into ecosystems in many parts of the world as a biocontrol to lower mosquito populations which in turn negatively affected many other species in each distinct bioregion.[5] Mosquitofish in Australia are classified as a noxious pest and may have exacerbated the mosquito problem in many areas by outcompeting native invertebrate predators of mosquito larvae. Several counties in California distribute mosquitofish at no charge to residents with human-made fish ponds and pools as part of their mosquito abatement programs.[6][7][8] The fish are made available to residents only and are intended to be used solely on their own property, not introduced into natural habitat. On 24 February 2014, Chennai Corporation in India introduced western mosquitofish in 660 ponds to control the mosquito population in freshwater bodies.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish
- vector_spaces 4y ago
  We keep mosquitofish. We bought them to release into our pond for this purpose, but realized they would harass our goldfish and that the goldfish probably would do a good enough job at this themselves. So we used them as dither fish for a nervous flowerhorn cichlid, and after he passed they now have the run of a 140 gallon tank to themselves. They spend all their time chasing each other / going after anything that moves so it's no wonder they have such an outsize environmental impact[1]. Ours have lots of hiding places and a huge tank for just a handful of them Apparently they give live birth, but we've yet to witness it, likely because any babies are immediately eaten -- or because the females are unlikely to give birth in the presence of males (supposedly -- I haven't confirmed this anywhere, just seen it mentioned on various fishkeeping forums). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish#Environmental_imp...
  - esaym 4y ago
    >Apparently they give live birth Yes, I paid $10 for just 5 of these. Came back a week later to more than 50 swimming in the tank!
latchkey 4y ago
I recently took my campervan all over the mountains of middle california and omg... once you get to any sort of elevation, the number of mosquitos is insane. Really takes the fun out of camping!
AtomicOrbital 4y ago
NYC back in early 2000's had a West Nile Virus scare so gov did extensive aerial spraying of pesticides for many months ... that was the end of mosquitoes... gov publicized the nighttime spraying back then, not today yet the city continues to be mosquito free ... my guess is the pesticides they use has contributed to the abject loss of most insect species not just in the city but in upstate NY as well ... the NYC watershed covers several hundred miles into upstate where insects are simply absent today in comparison to decades ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nkozyra 4y ago
  Spraying is pretty rampant all across Florida yet the mosquitoes find a way. To your point I don't recall ever being bitten by a mosquito in NYC proper but my parents said it used to be pretty common. I believe I got a few bites on Governors Island once, though.
- crmd 4y ago
  Story time: I was in Brooklyn at that time and took a large dose of magic mushrooms with a friend one Sunday evening. We thought we heard strange noises outside around 1AM and went to investigate. With the world around us oozing and flowing crazy psychedelic colors, we see what appears to be a military vehicle rolling up the block going about 5 miles an hour. We’re standing there confused when the silence is broken by a loudspeaker on the truck, “Stay inside. Close your windows. Stay inside close your windows”. We drop to the ground, terrified, trying to figure out if we’re hallucinating, as the echos of the command reverberate off the buildings around us. When the truck rolls directly past us we see what’s 20 yards behind it: another army truck with floodlights glaring, flanked by a crew in full hazmat suits with hoses spraying a cloud of something in the air as they pass us walking slowly down the block. Then just silence, and the sinister shadow of the sprayers backlit by floodlights disappearing around the corner onto fifth avenue heading north toward Park Slope. There are no words that describe the psychedelic terror I felt in those moments. We legit thought the world was ending and/or there was an alien invasion, and the military was somehow involved like an X-Files storyline come to life. A few hours later we calm down and are debating whether or not it really happened. And in the morning we see the flyers all over the neighborhood: mosquito spraying Sunday night, “stay inside, close your windows” They forgot to include, “don’t take mushrooms”.
hcurtiss 4y ago
>“The pesticides used are said to be non-toxic and include substances such as liquid garlic, soap, peppermint and rosemary.” Said to be? Call me skeptical. The vector control districts in Florida, including Orange County’s, use conventional pesticides in abundance, including by aerial application. They’re very effective when combined with Integrated Pest Management.
- cm2012 4y ago
  Disney claims it's all garlic extract or whatever but I have always flatly not believed the claim.
execat 4y ago
Unrelated to Disney but related to mosquitoes: Singapore's Wolbachia-Aedes suppression technology is very interesting, but specific to Aedes mosquitoes. The government releases male Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitoes that suppress the Aedes aegypti mosquito populations. > Male Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitoes are released regularly at NEA’s study sites to mate with female urban Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Their resultant eggs do not hatch and no offspring are produced. Continued releases lead to a decline in the urban Aedes aegypti mosquito population, and therefore less dengue transmission. https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/research/wolbachia-aedes-mosquito-suppression-strategy/frequently-asked-questions https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/researc...
noja 4y ago
"The pesticides used are said to be non-toxic... Growth regulators are also used to limit mosquito larvae, killing them before they can even hatch. Disney sprays these agents twice a day." So technically true perhaps, but...
heavenlyblue 4y ago
> If you're from a country without mosquitoes- like Iceland- then you might not realise just how annoying mosquitoes can be. If there's no mosquitoes in Iceland, then they're pretty well-balance by the presence of midges
tristor 4y ago
Whatever they’re doing, they need to do to the whole state of Alaska. The mosquitoes there are wild, and make Houston mosquitoes seem tame by comparison.

186 points by dom96 4y ago

My assumption before reading: barrels and barrels of pesticides. Article: barrels of pesticides, yes, but also well-designed landscape architecture. I'm curious what's the bigger factor. Also, does layering the approaches have a bigger effect than you'd expect if you summed the effects individually, or a smaller one?

dom96 4y ago
It may be barrels of pesticides, but at least it seems they opt for natural pesticide (liquid garlic/peppermint) instead of any toxic (to humans) substances.
- whizzter 4y ago
  Might've been less nice pesticies in the past, but I guess awareness of possible lawsuits from employees has forced their hand.
  - mathgeek 4y ago
    Do you have a source for that conjecture? Was there a specific new outlet that raised the issue previously?
- scarmig 4y ago
  That made me look a bit more into it. As far as I can tell, garlic (in non-detectable to human concentrations) is used, but there are also references to non-specific pesticides and growth regulators, which they'd naturally emphasize over scary sounding chemicals. It seems to be a genuinely impressive and comprehensive (and, from experience, effective) program, but it still likely uses some "toxic" pesticides. I figure if mosquitoes could be controlled by water mixed with garlic, we could be making incredible and scalable progress against e.g. malaria in Africa using that approach. Other methods Disney uses include releasing predators of mosquitoes regularly and sampling mosquito population genetics using CO2 traps to proactively anticipate new problems.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  Look at the wording closely: it says "rumored to be." That's corporate-speak for "we're lying." Guarantee if Disney were using natural pesticides, they'd be shouting their lungs out about it, especially in what appears to be a corporate-paid-for blogspam article.
chrisco255 4y ago
As a central Florida native I have little doubt that the landscape architecture plays a big role. Mosquitoes breed and multiply incredibly quick in this climate. Every city sprays regularly to keep populations lower, but they are still around.
- silisili 4y ago
  I lived and traveled all around central florida, and don't remember ever really seeing a mosquito much less getting bit by one. The spray and chemicals they put in the gray water work wonders. In the Midwest, those suckers eat you alive. No body of water or pool in sight, but summer nights you wouldn't go out without bathing in Off.
  - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    I went boating in the Everglades in August last year for 3 days and I haven't seen a mosquito. Not even one.
    - fuzzfactor 4y ago
      >My assumption before reading: barrels and barrels of pesticides. >I went boating in the Everglades in August last year for 3 days and I haven't seen a mosquito. Not even one. The unspoiled Everglades had tons of mosquitos. Before they built Disney World that was a hell of a place to get a flat tire on the turnpike. Day or night it was just as bad as the Everglades, and if you didn't have loads of repellent more mosquitos would be circling for a landing spot than there was room for on any bare skin. Most likely almost all of the tonnage that was applied by all parties, of the most effective pesticides available, were dispersed in the area in the decades since. With the much larger human population today still using ordinary toxic stuff widely on their homes and lawns, maybe this helps make it easier to use non-toxic pest control within the tourist attractions.
- CSMastermind 4y ago
  I live in central Florida near Disney, and I can't remember seeing a mosquito. They were ubiquitous in the North during the summer when I was growing up but around here they seem to have been all but eliminated, at least in the populated areas. Now other bugs are everywhere around here. It took a big adjustment to get used to just how many insects there were everywhere and how quickly they'll take hold without proper precautions. In my experience ticks are a much bigger pest, especially if you like hiking.
specialp 4y ago
Eliminating mosquito breeding grounds is the most effective approach of mosquito control. They do not travel very far, have a massive reproductive ability, and have a relatively short lifespan. Larvacides in standing water do stop larvae but not adults. If you do have standing water that is a necessity then there are larvacides that can treat the water with bacteria for a safe effective treatment. It must be done often though. Insecticides do kill adult mosquitos and repel them but still if there is an area nearby they can breed in, they will be replaced very fast.
- ip26 4y ago
  Turbidity is another good strategy with necessary water.
elihu 4y ago
I was going to guess that they used something like industrial-scale mosquito dunks. You put them in water and they release a live bacteria (bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israeliensis) that specifically attacks mosquito larvae and is harmless to everything else as far as we know. https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/ https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/ Mosquito fish are also effective, and the article says they use those. Dragonflies are another very efficient predator of mosquitoes. I could imagine Disney World maintaining dragonfly ponds around their properties. Though I guess if you're good enough at controlling mosquito larvae then the dragonflies might migrate elsewhere where they have more to eat. (It'd be an interesting strategy for Disney to grow species of mosquitoes that don't attack humans and releasing them around their park, just to attract more mosquito-eating predators.)

robbrown451 4y ago

They need little robots/drones to scout about at night for larva and kill them. True, this will take a lot of robots. But that's ok, since during the daytime when the guests are there, the robots can go back to the fab shop and make more robots. That should get the last few percent. I can't imagine anything going wrong with this idea. You're welcome!

acdha 4y ago
I keep wishing this wasn’t vaporware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
- mjevans 4y ago
  Good chuckle imagining that as the laser light show every night... title alone.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Just sell me popcorn and play Star Wars space combat music.
- Jeff_Brown 4y ago
  Way better than a bug zapper! Those are commercially available, somewhat popular, indiscriminate killers of any small species that crosses the relevant boundary, and hazardous to humans -- they typically explode the insects, releasing parasites and pathogens that manage to stay alive.
  - echelon 4y ago
    > they typically explode the insects, releasing parasites and pathogens that manage to stay alive. This seems dubious to me. I can't imagine it would aerosolize, and even droplets would need to be close to a human to infect them. Is there a citation for this?
    - 4y ago

Hedepig 4y ago

> If you're from a country without mosquitoes- like the United Kingdom- I wish this was true, but they certainly exist in this country

SapporoChris 4y ago

This subject has come up before. Why Disney World doesn't have mosquitoes(https://www.greenmatters.com/p/why-no-mosquitoes-disney-world https://www.greenmatters.com/p/why-no-mosquitoes-disney-worl...) 262 points|jbonniwell|12 months ago|125 comments The Fascinating Reason Why There Are No Mosquitoes at Disney World(https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-are-no-mosquitoes-in-disney-world https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-...) 25 points|elorant|2 years ago|3 comments Why There Are No Mosquitoes at Disney World(http://mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-are-no-mosquitoes-in-disney-world http://mentalfloss.com/article/548281/reason-why-there-are-n...) 3 points|amelius|3 years ago|0 comments You Never See Mosquitoes at Disney World(https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-never-see-mosquitoes-disney-202846868.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-never-see-mosquitoes-dis...) 2 points|redm|1 year ago|0 comments Why Are There No Mosquitoes at Disney World? (2018)(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_30jPKzWdN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_30jPKzWdN0)

mr-pink 4y ago
instead of linking four articles why not give the answer? trained rodents nanotechnology lasers herds of chameleons
- daniel_iversen 4y ago
  I think the comment is a bit hostile, and there's merit in linking to past conversations, that said I for one would love for the first comment to be a TL:DR; comment!
- happyopossum 4y ago
  The chickens are for monitoring viruses being transmitted by the mosquitoes, there aren’t enough of them around there to realistically make a dent in the population.
- adastra22 4y ago
  And no standing water.
- trident5000 4y ago

Reason077 4y ago

> "If you're from a country without mosquitoes- like the United Kingdom" The article suggests that there are no mosquitos in the UK, but this is not correct. The UK has over 30 native mosquito species, and many of them bite humans. One urban-adapted species, Culex molestus, is even known as the "London Underground Mosquito": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito

easytiger 4y ago
Yea. I've been "eaten alive" as is the vernacular by the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen in London. Horrendous. Also hard to avoid unless you live at height
- dom96 4y ago
  Interesting, I've lived in the UK for many years, have heard many times that it is mosquito-free and haven't run into mosquitoes in all my time here. I would still say that the UK has many orders of magnitude less mosquitoes than other countries, from personal experience at least. In any case, the article has been fixed to say "Iceland" instead.
  - ISL 4y ago
    Iceland doesn't seem to have any/many mosquitoes, but yowza, does it have midges (especially, as the article below says, near Myvatn). https://icelandmag.is/article/are-there-midges-iceland#:~:text=Answer%3A%20There%20are%20two%20types,by%20avoiding%20rivers%20and%20lakes https://icelandmag.is/article/are-there-midges-iceland#:~:te....
  - scarmig 4y ago
    Why doesn't Iceland have mosquitoes? Greenland does.
    - dagurp 4y ago
      the theory is that Iceland has so many fluctuations in temperature that the mosquitos are not able to complete a whole breeding cycle

bufordtwain 4y ago

I would have been more convinced if the article hadn't included an ad for a Disney world vacation.

drc500free 4y ago

> Avoiding stagnant water even goes as far as when it comes to the plants that are chosen to grow inside the parks. Took me about 5 tries to wrap my mind around this sentence structure.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
Kind of a garden path sentence. Could just remove "when it comes to" and the sentence would read much better.
ghostpepper 4y ago
Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?

tkgally 4y ago

I remember wondering the same thing twenty-five years ago, when I lived not far from Tokyo Disneyland. I took the kids there once in August, when the Tokyo area is hot and humid and insects abound, especially in the evenings. At Disneyland, not only were there no mosquitos; there also weren’t any moths, gnats, or other flying insects. I also remember noticing some cute birds flying around freely within the park. When we left and headed for home, a short train ride away, bugs swarmed around the street lights as usual and the birds were pigeons and crows and other less pleasant species. Tokyo Disneyland’s wildlife control program must have extended to more than just mosquitos.

xattt 4y ago
> Tokyo Disneyland’s wildlife control program must have extended to more than just mosquitos. Between this comment and one part of the thread above your post, this makes me think that “broad-spectrum pest management” is an inadvertent side effect of the methods used by Disney.

dmix 4y ago

Apparently fish are used quite often for this purpose: > The name "Mosquitofish" was given because the fish eats mosquito larvae, and has been used more than any other fishes for the biological control of mosquitoes. > Mosquitofish were introduced directly into ecosystems in many parts of the world as a biocontrol to lower mosquito populations which in turn negatively affected many other species in each distinct bioregion.[5] Mosquitofish in Australia are classified as a noxious pest and may have exacerbated the mosquito problem in many areas by outcompeting native invertebrate predators of mosquito larvae. Several counties in California distribute mosquitofish at no charge to residents with human-made fish ponds and pools as part of their mosquito abatement programs.[6][7][8] The fish are made available to residents only and are intended to be used solely on their own property, not introduced into natural habitat. On 24 February 2014, Chennai Corporation in India introduced western mosquitofish in 660 ponds to control the mosquito population in freshwater bodies.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish

vector_spaces 4y ago
We keep mosquitofish. We bought them to release into our pond for this purpose, but realized they would harass our goldfish and that the goldfish probably would do a good enough job at this themselves. So we used them as dither fish for a nervous flowerhorn cichlid, and after he passed they now have the run of a 140 gallon tank to themselves. They spend all their time chasing each other / going after anything that moves so it's no wonder they have such an outsize environmental impact[1]. Ours have lots of hiding places and a huge tank for just a handful of them Apparently they give live birth, but we've yet to witness it, likely because any babies are immediately eaten -- or because the females are unlikely to give birth in the presence of males (supposedly -- I haven't confirmed this anywhere, just seen it mentioned on various fishkeeping forums). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquitofish#Environmental_imp...
- esaym 4y ago
  >Apparently they give live birth Yes, I paid $10 for just 5 of these. Came back a week later to more than 50 swimming in the tank!

latchkey 4y ago

I recently took my campervan all over the mountains of middle california and omg... once you get to any sort of elevation, the number of mosquitos is insane. Really takes the fun out of camping!

AtomicOrbital 4y ago

NYC back in early 2000's had a West Nile Virus scare so gov did extensive aerial spraying of pesticides for many months ... that was the end of mosquitoes... gov publicized the nighttime spraying back then, not today yet the city continues to be mosquito free ... my guess is the pesticides they use has contributed to the abject loss of most insect species not just in the city but in upstate NY as well ... the NYC watershed covers several hundred miles into upstate where insects are simply absent today in comparison to decades ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nkozyra 4y ago
Spraying is pretty rampant all across Florida yet the mosquitoes find a way. To your point I don't recall ever being bitten by a mosquito in NYC proper but my parents said it used to be pretty common. I believe I got a few bites on Governors Island once, though.
crmd 4y ago
Story time: I was in Brooklyn at that time and took a large dose of magic mushrooms with a friend one Sunday evening. We thought we heard strange noises outside around 1AM and went to investigate. With the world around us oozing and flowing crazy psychedelic colors, we see what appears to be a military vehicle rolling up the block going about 5 miles an hour. We’re standing there confused when the silence is broken by a loudspeaker on the truck, “Stay inside. Close your windows. Stay inside close your windows”. We drop to the ground, terrified, trying to figure out if we’re hallucinating, as the echos of the command reverberate off the buildings around us. When the truck rolls directly past us we see what’s 20 yards behind it: another army truck with floodlights glaring, flanked by a crew in full hazmat suits with hoses spraying a cloud of something in the air as they pass us walking slowly down the block. Then just silence, and the sinister shadow of the sprayers backlit by floodlights disappearing around the corner onto fifth avenue heading north toward Park Slope. There are no words that describe the psychedelic terror I felt in those moments. We legit thought the world was ending and/or there was an alien invasion, and the military was somehow involved like an X-Files storyline come to life. A few hours later we calm down and are debating whether or not it really happened. And in the morning we see the flyers all over the neighborhood: mosquito spraying Sunday night, “stay inside, close your windows” They forgot to include, “don’t take mushrooms”.

hcurtiss 4y ago

>“The pesticides used are said to be non-toxic and include substances such as liquid garlic, soap, peppermint and rosemary.” Said to be? Call me skeptical. The vector control districts in Florida, including Orange County’s, use conventional pesticides in abundance, including by aerial application. They’re very effective when combined with Integrated Pest Management.

cm2012 4y ago
Disney claims it's all garlic extract or whatever but I have always flatly not believed the claim.

execat 4y ago

Unrelated to Disney but related to mosquitoes: Singapore's Wolbachia-Aedes suppression technology is very interesting, but specific to Aedes mosquitoes. The government releases male Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitoes that suppress the Aedes aegypti mosquito populations. > Male Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitoes are released regularly at NEA’s study sites to mate with female urban Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Their resultant eggs do not hatch and no offspring are produced. Continued releases lead to a decline in the urban Aedes aegypti mosquito population, and therefore less dengue transmission. https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/research/wolbachia-aedes-mosquito-suppression-strategy/frequently-asked-questions https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/researc...

noja 4y ago

"The pesticides used are said to be non-toxic... Growth regulators are also used to limit mosquito larvae, killing them before they can even hatch. Disney sprays these agents twice a day." So technically true perhaps, but...

heavenlyblue 4y ago

> If you're from a country without mosquitoes- like Iceland- then you might not realise just how annoying mosquitoes can be. If there's no mosquitoes in Iceland, then they're pretty well-balance by the presence of midges

tristor 4y ago

Whatever they’re doing, they need to do to the whole state of Alaska. The mosquitoes there are wild, and make Houston mosquitoes seem tame by comparison.