Eco Hvar

Mosquitoes, holiday planning

Objavljeno u Vaša pisma

A worried parent asks Eco Hvar about mosquitoes on Hvar. Is there cause for concern?

Potential visitor: email 25th August 2017: Hi, I am planning to visit Hvar Island in early September. I have a one year old baby girl and I am concerned regarding mosquitoes. How bad is the infestation this year?

Thank you. 

Eco Hvar: 25th August 2017: Many thanks for your inquiry.

Are you concerned about the possibility of mosquito-borne illnesses? If so, be reassured: I have never known of any in all my years on Hvar. And in Croatia overall there have been extremely few cases, very few in humans, and no fatalities.

You can check all this out on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, eg for Dengue Fever; and West Nile Fever. (Zika has not happened at all in Croatia.)

There is more reason to be concerned about the insecticides used to 'kill off' mosquitoes than the mosquitoes themselves. Permethrin, for instance, is used in many over-the-counter sprays against flying insects, including mosquitoes. Permethrin is even used as to impregnate materials for clothing to prevent mosquito bites. Yet Permethrin has many ill-effects, from being toxic to cats, to possibly affecting the nervous system adversely during development (ie in babies and small children: eg Shafer, T.J., et al. 2005. "Developmental neurotoxicity of pyrethroid insecticides: critical review and future research needs." Environ Health Perspect. 113(2):123-136.)

Mosquitoes are certainly a nuisance, and their bites can cause irritation. However, in my experience, an adequate Vitamin B intake reduces the effects of their bites dramatically. Citronella candles can help repel mosquitoes in the environment. These measures can certainly work for adults. For a small baby, obviously you should seek advice from a paediatric specialist, preferably one with an interest in holistic medicine.

How bad is the infestation? The answer may sound odd. Friends who live away from the main roads report that there are very few this year. Those of us who live close to the roads which were sprayed with insecticides in the routine 'fogging' are experiencing an influx of mosquitoes, as indeed happens each time.

The truth is that mosquitoes in this area of Dalmatia have not caused any epidemic of dangerous diseases. Mosquitoes are endemic in the Mediterranean, and attempts to eradicate them through poisons only make the situation worse. Mosquitoes are arguably much less dangerous than the poisons used to suppress them.

I hope all this information lessens your concern. September is usually the perfect month for visiting Dalmatia!

Potential visitor, 26th August 2017: 

Thank you for your reply. This was very helpful. We are planning to go ahead with the visit.
xeenaa13(a)gmail.com

Izvor: http://www.biovrt.com/kontakt

Više u ovoj kategoriji: « Mosquitoes and more Taking care: helping street cats »
na vrh članka
Nalazite se ovdje: Home vaša pisma Mosquitoes, holiday planning

Novosti: Ekologija.hr

  • ‘National scandal’: extreme heat linked to 40,000 deaths in England between 1988 and 2025

    ONS data shows rising toll of climate crisis, with officials warning this summer on track to set further records

    More than 40,000 extra people died on the hottest days in England between 1988 and 2025 than would be expected in normal temperatures, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday.

    The figures do not include this summer, when England has sweltered under a succession of heatwaves and is on track to record its highest ever number of heat-related deaths. The UK Health Security Agency announced on 30 July that an estimated 2,877 people had died in the May and June heatwaves alone. The total is almost double the figure for the whole summer in 2025.

    Continue reading...

  • 1.3m plastic bottles collected in a day in global volunteer ocean cleanup

    Ocean Conservancy says last year’s cleanup collected 13.9m pieces of rubbish from beaches and rivers worldwide

    More than 1.3m plastic bottles were collected from beaches, rivers and waterways last year during the world’s largest single-day volunteer ocean cleanup.

    About 630,000 people took part in the International Coastal Cleanup in 2025, removing almost 13.9m pieces of rubbish from more than 15,000 miles of coastline and waterways.

    Continue reading...

  • Heatwaves show UK must do more to promote cycling and walking, campaigners say

    Civil society groups argue climate crisis means transport sector needs to urgently reduce its carbon emissions

    Dozens of civil society groups have demanded the UK government do more to promote cycling and walking, after this summer’s extreme heat exposed the desperate need to decarbonise transport.

    This summer’s heatwaves and wildfires were “immediate, real-world manifestations of the climate emergency”, the groups said, making reform of transport – responsible for more carbon emissions than any other sector in the UK – an urgent priority.

    Continue reading...

  • Sand overextraction weakening riverbanks as concrete demand soars

    Research finds demand has more than doubled since 2000 and 80% of current demand comes from Asia

    A booming demand for concrete has resulted in sand and gravel being extracted from riverbeds faster than nature can replenish it. A study published in Reviews of Geophysics shows that the demand for sand and gravel has more than doubled in the last two decades, with overextraction leading to weaker riverbanks, lower groundwater levels, coastal salt intrusion and poorer water quality.

    In 2024, city-building and infrastructure projects around the world turned 28bn tonnes of sand and gravel into concrete. Researchers reviewed data on sand and gravel extraction going back to 1974 and have shown that since 2000 demand has more than doubled, with more than 80% of current demand coming from Asia, supporting urban development and road-building across China and India in particular. They found much of the material was being extracted from rivers across Asia and Africa. Data on extraction is scarce but where it does exist the researchers showed that extraction often exceeded natural sediment replacement severalfold.

    Continue reading...

  • Mood-boosting benefits of birdsong drowned out by traffic noise, study finds

    Even low levels of traffic noise can negate the benefits of listening to natural sounds, researchers say

    Hearing the trill or whistle of a bird while going about daily life is well known to boost people’s mood. But a new study suggests the psychological benefits of hearing birdsong are being threatened by traffic noise.

    Researchers found that even low levels of traffic noise negatively affected the benefits to wellbeing that could otherwise be derived from listening to natural sounds.

    Continue reading...

  • Call to ban marmot hunting in France as campaigners say they are ‘killed for fun’

    Protests and petitions planned amid growing concerns over impact of climate crisis on numbers of Alpine rodent

    Animal rights campaigners are gearing up for protests and petitions aimed at persuading the French government to ban the hunting of Alpine marmots.

    Open season on the rodents, members of the squirrel and groundhog family, begins in September, a few weeks before they go into a long winter hibernation.

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: A farm that’s a pocket rocket of rewilding – and a success in the face of opposition | Amy-Jane Beer

    Asturias, Spain: Wild Finca is thrilling in its ecological abundance, and was created in just eight years despite countless obstacles

    On a rocky 13-hectare pocket in the foothills of the Picos de Europa, Luke Massey and Katie Stacey are raising children, dogs, cattle, chicken, ducks, geese and eyebrows. In their eight years here, the farm they call Wild Finca has become a mass of scrub, with scattered large trees and dozens of clearings that Luke calls fields, but which look more like tiny irregular glades, riddled with trails and hemmed all around by the blackthorn, gorse and bramble that has sprung up around the tumbled remains of drystone walls.

    If Wild Finca is a forever home to the Massey-Staceys, it is a whole world to nature. Witness the butterflies and wasp spiders, the snakes, lizards, hedgehogs and sparrows, and the thousand-piece cricket orchestra that performs each evening as the glow-worms light up. It offers denning and roosting sites for foxes, pine martens, badgers and 17 species of bat, feeding opportunities for roe deer and wild boar, several species of eagle and vulture, and a pit stop for others such as the nightingale I heard singing in early morning mist.

    Continue reading...

  • ​W​hy are European leaders staying silent after our summer of climate shock?

    Lethal temperatures ​and wildfires have exposed a widening gulf between voters demanding ​action and politicians unwilling to confront the long-term choices global heating requires

    • Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

    The climate crisis means “we’re going to have to change everything – the way we live, the way we produce, the way we trade,” France’s veteran radical-left firebrand, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, told the summer congress of his France Insoumise party last weekend.

    The term “climate change”, said Mélenchon – the most likely rival to Marine Le Pen in next year’s presidential run-off, according to one poll this week – may sound “almost reassuring”, but its actual impact will feel like “landing on another planet whenever we leave home”.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘You can taste the ash’: surviving in America’s wildfire smoke capital

    A magical corner of Oregon has the highest US rate of wildfire smoke deaths. How do residents live with the haze – and grief?

    Driving into the county, you can’t miss the sign.

    “IT’S THE CLIMATE”.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘132F’: meet the man calling out NYC’s infernally hot subway stations

    Jack Klein takes heat readings, gives fans to overheated passengers and lugs big jugs of water into the stations

    On a recent August day in the subterranean furnace of New York City’s subway, one bearded, curly-haired man was studying his phone for different reasons than the other wilting passengers – to track the soaring temperatures and ponder how underground train stations can cool down in an era of climate crisis.

    Jack Klein, a 31-year-old construction site manager, has in the past two years taken it upon himself to become a sort of guerrilla subway heat operative, sticking teardrop-shaped thermometers to steel beams in seven of the hottest Manhattan stations and posting social media videos of the hades-like summer temperatures that commuters have to endure.

    Continue reading...

Novosti: Cybermed.hr

Novosti: Biologija.com

Copyright © 2026 Eco Hvar. Sva prava zadržana. Developed by Orion Informatika.