Protecting Against Bugs in the Desert

Video Transcript

Hi. I'm Mike Meyers with the Zion Wilderness Survival School for Expert Village. Moment about the obvious pests that you run into in the desert, other than human ones. Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are not all that prevalent in desert settings because of the lack of water. And, they like water. It's also too hot for them, in most cases. But, they can exist around ponds and things. But, in any survival situation or any hiking situation, I always carry this Ben's. It's called Ben's. It comes in this orange jar. There are many types of insect repellents. I will tell you that the deet, D-E-E-T, is the only one that is absolutely reliable that I know of. There are some people who try other things and say, "Oh, this works wonderfully." Entomologists will tell you most of them are, the Sonic repellents, and things like that, do not work. But, the deet is nasty stuff but it works. Keep it out of your eyes. Keep it out of your mouth. Put it only on exposed areas, the back of your hand, your neck, your ears, maybe down around your neck, and so forth. The other thing with mosquitoes and other insects is keep covered up. You may have noticed, I wear a long-sleeved shirt even though it's a hundred and three degrees today. The reason I do is not just to keep the sun off of me, but it also keeps bugs off of me. I have these zip on pant legs that can make pants out of these shorts. I usually wear these. I didn't today, but I brought them with me in case I needed them. Keep your hands as clean as possible before you're eating or doing other things. What can you clean your hands with? This may surprise you, but people think of dirt as being dirty. If you take that dirt right off the ground here, and you just pick it up and you do this with your hands, even though you're hands seem dirtier now, you have removed, the dust and all, has removed things that we think of, bacteria, and, and other things that can make you sick. If you use the toilet out in the woods, you need to clean your hands afterwards. 'Cause after day and day and day of not cleaning, you can carry all kinds of bacteria on you. And, you can make you feel very sick and get a terrible case of diarrhea. And if you get diarrhea, you're going to become severely dehydrated, and you don't need that in the desert.

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