A mild winter and a rainy summer combined have meant one thing for Wisconsinites this summer: extra mosquitoes.
This year’s mild winter meant more mosquitoes survived to come out again in the summer. And more rain means there’s more standing water for the insects to breed in.
"Unfortunately, no one is being paid to collect that sort of data, but certainly from talking to people and my own observations, it’s a bad year and it’s probably gonna get worse," said Mike Draney, a biology professor and chair of the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
West Nile Virus and Zika are not mosquito-borne diseases that Wisconsinites need to worry about. However, rocky mountain spotted fever, La Crosse encephalitis virus, and Jamestown Canyon virus are carried by Wisconsin species of mosquito, although those illnesses are rare, Draney said.
To play it safe, there steps you should take to protect yourself from mosquitoes and minimize how many bites you get, he said.
Best Practices Include:
- Wearing a 30 percent DEET spray on your skin and higher concentration DEET sprays on your clothing and reapply every few hours.
- If you want to avoid DEET, try a bug-repellent essential oil like eucalyptus, lemongrass, lemon, citronella or even catnip. You’ll need to reapply more frequently, since they work because they’re evaporating off your skin.
- Wearing long sleeves and pants, or wear special bug-protective clothing treated with insect repellent.
- Install screens in outdoor areas.
- Install fans in outdoor areas. Mosquitoes are weak flyers and the breeze will keep them away.
- Put mosquito dunks in ponds and other standing water. These have cultures of a bacterium that only preys on mosquitoes and won’t harm other bugs and animals.
Don’t Bother With The Following:
- Bug zappers. By design, these attract mosquitoes "from a wider area of your neighborhood than mosquitoes would be attracted to you normally," Draney said. They also kill other insects and can be detrimental to ecosystems
- Citronella candles. They’re unlikely to work on the hungriest bugs.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to state using DEET spray is a way to repel mosquitoes. The photo has also been updated to reflect a mosquito.