BDN speaks with Kirby, Dill about black flies
The Bangor Daily News spoke with University of Maine Cooperative Extension staff Clay Kirby, an insect diagnostician, and Jim Dill, a pest management specialist, for an article about black flies. “There are between 40 and 50 different [black fly] species in Maine, and just a handful of them actually go after people. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s not the majority of the species,” Kirby said. “I can remember back when I was in college here as an undergraduate in Maine, there was a black fly season,” said Dill. “It went from maybe the middle of May to the middle of June and that was it. But the reason was the waters of Maine were so polluted at that time. The black flies couldn’t survive. Now that we’ve cleaned up our water, we have about 40 species of black flies.” Kirby added that black flies are an indicator species that are more common the cleaner the water is. And Dill said that people coming to Maine for the first time could have worse reactions to black fly bites than people who have been in the state for a long time. “What we suggest to people who are gardening is to put a hardhat on and smear it with baby oil,” Dill said. “Those [black flies] that are just bouncing off you and driving you crazy will get stuck in the baby oil. They’re kind of delicate little creatures, so that’s enough to stop them.” WGME (Channel 13) published the BDN article.