Loading ...I had to laugh about this – I began my career at Canada’s nuclear research facility in Eastern Ontario , in a region where black flies* are a plague as the weather warms up . Someone came up with the idea of irradiating male black flies to sterilize them , then releasing them into the environment , because female black flies mate only once . This was supposed to control the black fly population . The problem was that the lab was in the center of maybe 50 000 square miles of woods, lakes and streams in Ontario and Quebec that were a perfect breeding ground for fertile black flies , and male sterility is not transferred to ‘the next generation’ .
*Black flies are tiny flies which live on blood , much like mosquitos , but bite and drink the blood . They ‘spit’ a saliva which is a mild anesthetic and anti-coagulant , so one never feels the bite , and is often unaware of being bitten until feeling a trickle of blood on surrounding skin . The wound forms a welt which itches for many days . There are times when one is surrounded by a cloud of hundreds if not thousands of these critters when out of doors , just as the long winter is ending and the weather is getting comfortable .