Cindy Carlson led the meeting and Nils Friberg the invocation.
 
Alex Carlson of the Minnesota Mosquito Control Agency (MMCA) talked about mosquitoes in Minnesota, (including cattail, snow melt, and summer flood water), and diseases they carry to including West Nile virus, Zika and malaria to humans, and heart worm to dogs. Mosquitoes breed in temporary and permanent shallow standing water such as in marshes, receding flood water, holding ponds, and containers. They kill more people than any other predator. (Alex recommends The Mosquito -  A Human History of our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard.)
 
Only females bite, needing blood to feed their eggs. A female lives 2-3 months and lays 300 eggs at a time, half of which are female.  By the 3rd generation, a single female can have 1.3 billion descendants.  Protected by hard shells they form unhatched eggs can survive 7 years in any climate.
 
The MMCA provides monitoring and integrated pest management service to the 7-county metropolitan area, targeting 15 of the active species, and focusing primarily on preventing larvae from emerging. They use environmentally sensitive products that do not adversely affect other wildlife.
 
Alex had suggestions for avoiding the bite: Remove or empty man-made containers from around the home; use mosquito repellents containing the active ingredient DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus; wear protective clothing (long, light, loose); avoid peak feeding times dusk to dawn.
 
When spraying your yard, don’t go above shoulder level. Put a fan on your deck or patio to disburse scents and discourage mosquitoes, which are weak flyers.
 
You can track mosquito activity at MMCA.org  Alex is shown below.
 
The meeting continued with a report on the Easter Egg Hunt – there were 300-350 children there despite the sub-zero wind chill. See below for Edeth James' pics.