Keep swattin’: Lowcountry mosquitoes still flying

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Summer may be finished, but it’s still mosquito season in the Lowcountry.

Beaufort County Mosquito Control Office Director Gregg Hunt told The Island Packet of Hilton Head (http://bit.ly/n4AdlZ ) that the county has received 216 calls to spray for mosquitoes so far this month, compared to about 40 in all of September.

Experts blame recent heavy rains and high tides in the region’s salt marshes for giving mosquitoes more areas to breed.

Hunt says the approved insecticide the county sprays is 95 percent effective, but with millions of adult mosquitoes emerging from eggs, those numbers don’t play in the favor of humans.

And experts say the mosquitoes will stay around as long as there is standing water around until the first hard freeze.

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Information from: The Island Packet, http://www.islandpacket.com