INDIANOLA — Many local newspaper columnists tend to write ad nauseum about their families. I, on the other hand, seem to find myself constantly drawn to documenting my efforts to maim and destroy mosquitos.
See “Mosquitos wrecking sleep pattern (Sept. 26, 2012),” “Devising cruel, unusual ways to kill mosquitos (Aug. 14, 2013)” and “Mosquitos still winning the war (March 11, 2015).”
I’m not sure what those headlines say about my psyche, but I’m embracing educating the public on the best ways to utterly eradicate the dreaded pests as one of my primary purposes in life. And what better place to launch such a campaign than the Mississippi Delta, ground zero for mosquito attacks? Our flat, soggy geography makes for ideal breeding territory. If we can turn the tide of the battle here, it can be done anywhere.
I was bitten repeatedly last week by tiny buzzing ones while foolishly trying to install a car seat at dusk, by big, vicious black ones while playing golf and by the normal sort that leave big whelps while hauling a limb out of my backyard. Three distinct species, one common goal: Driving me crazy while simultaneously depleting my body of much-needed red blood cells.
In a way, I admire those who can write about the manifold threats posed by mosquitos with disinterest (which, by the way, means “without bias,” not “without care.” The word you’re looking for to express that second point is “uninterested.” No one should ever be uninterested in mosquito extermination, though). No doubt we need experts out there who can study Zika, West Nile and other heinous diseases from a purely scientific and public health standpoint.
That’s just not me.
I’m more like the character from the Western whose family has been brutally butchered by a band of outlaws and is out seeking revenge. I’ve been hurt deeply, robbed of that which gives my life meaning, and am willing to do whatever it takes to punish those responsible. If that means applying more than the government recommended dosage of DEET, so be it. Dashing the hopes and dreams of their little ones as I dump standing water from a birdbath? Gives me great joy. Posting taunting photos on social media holding up the carcass of a mosquito I killed and warning his peers that they’re next, in the vein of Tchula Police Chief Kenneth Hampton? It wouldn’t even make me bat an eye.
Suffice it to say, I’m in this for the win.
So it’s with great hopefulness that I share the latest and greatest methodology for wiping out mosquitos: human-scented traps. I joke not.
A study published Aug. 9 in the British medical journal “The Lancet” — if you’re wondering, it’s not as entertaining as British television series are — described how scientists from The Netherlands and Kenya installed “solar-powered odour-baited mosquito trapping systems” on an island on Lake Victoria in Kenya. It was a huge study involving more than 34,000 participants between 2012 and 2015.
Solar power was required because most of the households in that impoverished area don’t have electricity. Scientists baited the traps with “a blend of synthetic organic attractants that mimic human odour.” That included five different chemicals plus a mimic of carbon dioxide, the gas we breathe out and that mosquitos are able to sense. Using mosquitos unending thirst for humanity against them? I’m liking this approach already.
They rigged the traps to run automatically between dusk and dawn each night and recorded how many mosquitos they caught and how many people equipped with the traps got malaria versus a control group. The result was killing 70 percent of the mosquitos in the area and 30 percent less malaria cases for those with the traps. Future developments could create cheaper traps that don’t require power and have longer-lasting baits.
Researchers cautioned it’s the first such study and said because there were less cases of malaria than anticipated even among the general population, the estimates of how effective the traps might be are “imprecise.”
Still, my spirits are buoyed. And if you see me out just before dark putting an old T-shirt bearing my scent in a trap in my yard, you’ll know exactly what I’m doing.
