Good Questions: Mosquito Repellent, Minnesota's 10,000 Lakes & More
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Every Friday, Heather Brown takes a look at some of the Good Questions viewers have sent in throughout the week. This time, she takes a look at bug spray, catching foxes and Minnesota's 10,000 lakes.
Susan from Chanhassen was wearing mosquito spray when she was stung by a wasp.
She wants to know: Why doesn't repellent work on those insects?
According to Mike McLean, spokesperson for the Minnesota Mosquito Control District, mosquitoes are after our blood and they find it with our scent. The bug spray screws up the mosquitos sense of smell.
"When you use a mosquito repellent, the mosquito gets confused and can't figure out whether you are a creature the mosquito wants to get blood from," McLean said.
Given some bees and some wasps are after our food, masking a person's scent doesn't make any difference to them.
Earlier this week, two people were bitten by a fox near Lake Harriet. On Wednesday, two Minneapolis Animal Care & Control officers caught a fox suspected of the biting.
So, Stewart from St. Paul wants to know: How did they catch the fox?
Animal Care & Control got a call around 8 a.m. Wednesday for an injured fox. Officers Ashley Pudas and Heather Vocke responded to the call.
Almost immediately, they were flagged down by a man who said the fox was under his porch. While in his backyard, Pudas saw the fox run toward the neighbor's yard.
"When we approached it in the vehicle, it was kind of laying down by the tree and immediately you knew something was wrong with it," Pudas said. "So, I opened the window, leaned my catch pole out the window and he gave me the opportunity to put a loop around his head."
As soon as Pudas had the fox trapped with her pole, Vocke parked the van, jumped out and grabbed the kennel. They both ushered the fox into it.
A catch pole is a long pole with a noose at the end of it that can tighten and loosen. Officers slip the noose around the animal's head and pull it tight. It doesn't hurt the animal, but allows the officer to have control of the animal. It's standard issue for animal control departments across the country.
"It's for our safety essentially," Pudas said.
And Sharon from Nashwauk asks: Why does Minnesota have so many lakes?
According to Barb Lusardi, a quaternary geologist with the Minnesota Geological Survey, the lakes were formed during the Ice Age when Minnesota was covered in glacial ice.
The edges of the ice would pile up dirt, debris and sediment and ice would get trapped under the dirt. When the glaciers retreated, the buried ice melted and the dirt collapsed. That left a hole, which turned in a lake.
It left us with 11,842 of them.