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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at Me.

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Speaker 2: It was such a rookie mistake. I was tramping in

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Speaker 2: the Kahudangi last summer. The Douglas ranged one thousand or

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Speaker 2: maybe twelve hundred meters above sea level, and after we'd

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Speaker 2: pitched a tent, as the sun got heavy and the

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Speaker 2: surrounding hills cast their shadows long and deep, I realized

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Speaker 2: that I had screwed up big time. What made the

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Speaker 2: ear so much worse was that it wasn't a bit

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Speaker 2: of absent minded forgetfulness on my part. I had carefully

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Speaker 2: considered my options before loading my pack. It wasn't that

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Speaker 2: I'd forgotten to bring long John's or pants. It's that

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Speaker 2: I'd chosen not to pack them. Up top, I had

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Speaker 2: a polyprop jumper and jacket, but down bottom I had

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Speaker 2: shorts and nothing else. Of course, the only way to

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Speaker 2: keep sandflies from biting is to keep moving, and the

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Speaker 2: last thing you feel like doing after eight or ten

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Speaker 2: hours of steady climbing is keep moving, as if to

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Speaker 2: wallow in my own stupidity, I ended up treading a

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Speaker 2: middle ground, moving just enough so as not to rest,

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Speaker 2: but not enough to stop the sandflies from completely devouring

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Speaker 2: my calves. Still, I have had worse experiences with them.

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Speaker 2: I'll not forget my night at the mouth of the

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Speaker 2: Heathy River, where the swarms of sandflies were so thick

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Speaker 2: they hung in the skies like pockets of buzzing black smoke.

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Speaker 2: Walking by, you had to make sure to close your

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Speaker 2: mouth so as not to catch a little bit of

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Speaker 2: extra protein on your way. And you know what, I

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Speaker 2: would still take a sandfly over a biting gnat. I

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Speaker 2: once chose to visit one of Utah's parks on a Sunday,

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Speaker 2: right in the middle of biting nat season. The locals

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Speaker 2: call them moose flies, which I suppose could be because

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Speaker 2: they hang around moose, or just as feasibly in my experience,

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Speaker 2: because the gnats are a comparable size. It wasn't just

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Speaker 2: the itching that killed me, though my bare legs were

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Speaker 2: soon covered in blood from all of their bites. I

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Speaker 2: returned to Salt Lake City to discover every pharmacy closed

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Speaker 2: for the rest of the weekend, and spent the night

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Speaker 2: lying in a tepid bath trying to stave off shock.

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Speaker 2: Often it's the obvious downside to natural beauty. If it's

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Speaker 2: a beautiful natural landscape, there will be something that will

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Speaker 2: give you an itchy bite. At least there is one

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Speaker 2: place on Earth you could still safely wear shorts. Sure,

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Speaker 2: you might be a bit nippy striding down the streets

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Speaker 2: of Raykovic in your studies, but at the very least

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Speaker 2: you could be sure there were no sandflies, no biting gnats,

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Speaker 2: no midges, no moose flies, and no mozzies. That was,

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Speaker 2: at least until this week. Scientists have confirmed that for

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Speaker 2: the first time, the world's deadliest creature has reached the

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Speaker 2: last country on Earth. Iceland officially has mosquitoes, and while

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Speaker 2: sure Iceland is not the Amazon, they're not at risk

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Speaker 2: of a dingy fever outbreak anytime soon. You can still

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Speaker 2: safely leave the deep at home. The truth is the

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Speaker 2: discovery probably represents more than just an ecological quirk. At

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Speaker 2: an individual level, sure is a potential nuisance, especially for

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Speaker 2: those of us who like wearing shorts, but what confirming

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Speaker 2: mosquitos and Iceland says about the state of the planet

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Speaker 2: is probably far far more serious.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack, listen live to

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Speaker 1: News Talks at b from nine am Saturday or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio