Josh First's Blog

Are Alien Invasives Driving You Nuts, Too?

“Alien invasives” is an ecological term or phrase for plants and animals that have parasitically invaded a favorable host environment, where they are unchecked by natural predators or forces. Examples exist in the Florida Everglades, where monitor lizards and giant pythons are rapidly becoming the dominant predators, in the Great Lakes, where round gobies and Asian carp are displacing walleyes, bass, salmon, and trout, and along the East Coast, where Asian mosquitoes are now fully entrenched.

It is this last species that really aggravates me, although the 15-20 million invasive non-native tax money-hungry and public services-gobbling humans presently here also bother me, too.

Asian mosquitoes come in several Latin names, which I won’t bother Dear Reader with here, but suffice it to say that they are the Samurai warrior in the world of mosquitoes. Where our native brown mosquitoes are relatively slow, lumbering, hovering, whining, nocturnal wall-hugging louts, the Asian mosquitoes are surreptitious, incredibly fast and dextrous, ankle-biting, and active 24/7, even in bright sunlight. If you swat at one, it won’t fly away and hide, it will Judo-fast avoid your hand, and immediately counter-attack.

One Asian mosquito is called the “tiger mosquito” because it has long camouflaging stripes which render it nearly invisible to the human eye, even up close. Almost like a shape-shifter, the tiger mosquito dodges your swat, and deftly, fearlessly moves in for the kill.

Asian mosquitoes have taken up residence in our back yard over the past five years. Each year they get worse, more dense, more aggressive, far beyond pesky. They have rendered our entire property nearly unusable during the months best suited to being outside. Gardening is now a run through a mine field, a gantlet that must be mastered quickly with a return to home base before too many painful bites are felt.

One fine Saturday in early August, in a shady spot in our back yard, reclining on a comfy chaise-lounge chair next to my wife and daughter, I soon discovered a black cloud horde of Asian mosquitoes around me. Welts were rising all over every area of exposed skin. I went and got the fly swatter and a can of bug spray, and returned to my reclining position, but with the swatter ready for action. After twenty minutes of battle and little reading, I had covered every part of my body with so much toxic bug dope that it began to make me feel ill. And yet the mosquitoes still found places they could land for the brief one or two seconds they require to extract my blood.

Unable to withstand the assault any more, I went inside and sat at the big picture window, watching my wife and child swat at the insects, the humans determined to enjoy the outdoors and the insects determined to suck blood.

Although my political nature dominates my writing, I really intend no metaphor here. This is really just waving the flag, an SOS, a warning, that America has become a breeding ground for alien invasives that are ruining our outdoor lifestyle. Now that the Ebola and Zika viruses have arrived with Obama’s foreign minions, more and more Americans are becoming aware of the costs of these invasive insects. It is not just about a little discomfort anymore, like with our friendly old native mosquito, but rather any time outdoors could cost you your health, even your life.

And what is the cost of lost happiness over twelve weekends, for tens of millions of people?