Swarms of mosquitoes have killed cows, deer, horses and other livestock in Louisiana after rain from Hurricane Laura led to an explosion in the pests’ population.
Thousands of mosquitoes have attacked animals as large as bulls, draining their blood and driving the massive creatures to pace in summer heat until they were exhausted, according to a Louisiana State University AgCenter veterinarian, agent and press release.
While recent aerial spraying efforts have helped bring the outbreak of mosquitoes under control, residents and animals in a portion of the state faced clouds of the bloodsucking insects in the days after Laura made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 27.
Farmers near where the storm made landfall have probably lost 300 to 400 cattle, said Dr. Craig Fontenot, a large-animal veterinarian based in Ville Platte.
“They’re vicious little suckers,” he said.
Jeremy Hebert, a LSU AgCenter agent in Acadia Parish, told USA TODAY Thursday that residents along costal, marshy areas are accustomed to mosquitoes and expect the population to climb following a heavy rain. But the scale of this outbreak was much larger than Hebert expected: “I’ve never experienced anything like this.”
The species of mosquito doesn’t transmit human diseases easily, Christine Navarre, an extension veterinarian with LSU AgCenter, told USA TODAY on Thursday.
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