Why Disney World doesn't have mosquitoes
greenmatters.com
greenmatters.com
EDIT: it looks like Snopes wrote about this: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/disney-world-mosquitoes/
They do put in a fair amount of effort. However, a much more effective solution would be to avoid having large bodies of water near people, but that would make the park less visually appealing.
>Considering its location smack-dab in the middle of Florida swamp territory, it’s hard to believe that there are no mosquitoes in Disney World, but trust us, it’s true.
But I was blindsided by my hatred of mosquitos.
I would also believe it that there are no African bullfrogs in the park.
"No mosquitoes" and "never" are pretty definitive.
I suspect these stories were planted or at least seeded by Disney.
The actual title has the advantage of a passable resemblance to English grammar and correct usage, and doesn't suggest that a certain nonzero quantity of mosquitoes is to be normatively preferred. More accurate at the expense of being less terse, while not sacrificing those advantages, would be something like “Why Disney World has fewer mosquitoes than might otherwise be expected”.
But if supplies of insect repellent are needed, then there's a lot more than that.
Get it to the point where less than 1% of people get bit and we can start to talk about "doesn't have mosquitoes"
Most metropolitans in Florida spray, and while you'll still get bites it's generally reasonable as long as you're not off in the woods.
I went to Disney last year and got attacked on the way out (the tram station outside of the park) as bad as I've ever been.
Which is, as you said, outside the park, so I don't see this anecdote contradicting the original statement. In fact, it even helps to show how much mosquitoes Florida usually has, strengthening the original premise.
It's outside of the theme park with the rides but the park itself is expansive.
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About a year ago I clicked through to a Disneyland-related travel article from a similar site suggested by Google News. Since then Google News likes to suggest similar Disney theme park content and it's become abundantly clear that Disney advertising money supports a steady stream of these types of submarine articles.
FWIW, I like Disney theme parks and don't need to be convinced or reminded to visit. And the articles are benign. Plus, it's cool that so many smaller outfits and writers can get a share of Disney's PR budget. It is annoying how many of them there are, but that's mostly Google News' fault for spamming my feed with them.
We can't know for sure if Disney paid anything for this particular article. But there's a strong chance. Compare this article from 9 months ago: https://www.greenmatters.com/p/vegan-options-disney-parks
Seems like this is the real meat, I wish the article had gone into more detail here.
Then they double down by stocking their water features with fish that particularly like to eat mosquito larvae.
Then the finishing move is using a garlic oil infused spray to drive away the adults.
Mosquito dunks are another approach. Basically, they're floating donut-shaped things that release a bacteria that's specifically harmful to mosquito larvae. That worked really well for me last fall; I had made myself a koi pond, but there weren't any koi for sale at the time and the mosquitoes were only too happy to fill the ecological void.
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly and all the got in return was a lifeless terrarium with 100 species we call Earth.
Reading about the actual article definitively makes much more sense. I think it is important to also acknowledge the history and importance of eradicating mosquitos for the sake of public health. For example, Italy had to deal with malaria at least until Mussolini. Eventually fully eradicating malaria with a combination of draining wetlands and use of insecticides such as the toxic, child-defect-causing DDT.
It's quite funny to see that they are using chickens as a canary method.
It is about Walt Disney World.
There are two of them. Disney World and Disney Land. This one is in Florida.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2002-09-21-02092...
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2002-09-21-02092...
Plus chickens
Instead they got stuck in a chicken coop waiting to get the West Nile virus.
TFA is actually about HOW Disney World purports to not have mosquitos.
WHY Disney World doesn’t want mosquitos is a different issue.
Disney World is some kind of fantasy expression of an ideal world. For the creators, this means an absence of irritants and an abundance of entertainment, sugar, salt, fat, and merch.
The difference between Disney World and the world is that one is an enclave and the other is a world.
The fact that mosquitos exist in both tells us something about the intelligence of species.
Although, maybe if we take scale into account, it would be like a human finding sausages in a river or something.
Nathan Myhrvold tried, but apparently failed [0].
[0]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosqu...
> Myhrvold, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical and mathematical physics from Princeton, envisioned Intellectual Ventures as a merchant of ideas [patents], not a producer of products.
> Not everyone appreciated paying for something IV was just sitting on and not “productizing.” The company has often been accused of being a “patent troll,” squatting under the bridge of innovation demanding its tribute to cross; CNET once called it “the most hated company in tech.” Myhrvold defended his patent business in an article he wrote, headlined “Funding Eureka!,” in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, which just so happened to come out the month after his ted Talk on the Photonic Fence. Maybe that wasn’t a total coincidence: Being known as the guy who shoots down malarial mosquitoes with laser beams is, if nothing else, a good way to change the subject.
> The only problem was that if you listened carefully, it became clear that the TED demonstration was a little bit faked. Myhrvold swapped the invisible infrared laser used to fry the bugs in tests at the lab for a cool-looking nonlethal green laser pointer that aimed at a Lucite box of mosquitoes across the stage, targeting them for theoretical death. But, since he knew the audience’s insect bloodlust could not be disappointed, he followed up the nonlethal light show with those slow-motion kill videos of the more carefully stage-managed mosquito target practice filmed at the lab. One of the most vivid images was a close-up of an execution in which the mosquito was, it turns out, glued to a pin, disabling flight, to “control variables.” But the TED talk has now been viewed 847,000 times, and the crowd went wild, so it was easy to get carried away with thinking this was coming out soon. “We didn’t dissuade people from saying it’s ready either,” Makagon admits. “Or communicate with people how long it would take.”
> And so, over the last seven years, “it got lots of attention,” says Myhrvold. “Lots of people who would kick the tires a little bit,” without actually deciding to invest in it.
The main benefit of this seems to be controlling mosquito populations while not bluntly eradicating all bug life (as other traps do) much of which contributes to a healthy ecosystem.
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/amazin-laser/2...
[1] https://www.insectweek.co.uk/news/mosquitoes-and-panama-cana...
Or the famous story how on the soft-launch days, Walt would hand children candy at the entrance, then watch how far they walked before they threw the wrapper on the ground. That's where they would place the garbage cans. (Yeah, sounds fanciful enough to be a fable, and perhaps it is. Even if the story is embellished, it definitely reflects the truth of the attention to detail at the Disney parks)
But did you know they do similar "real world UX" magic with music as well?
The different "themed" areas of the parks play different music to match the theme.
As you walk from one themed area to another, the "transition areas" play the treble from the area you are leaving, and the bass for the area you are entering.
Since all the music is in the same key and tempo, it produces a "fading in/out" effect as you travel, and never sounds dissonant or clashes, even though the themes in the different areas are totally different otherwise.
They also do crazy things with smell. In certain areas they emit (very subtle) scents to evoke certain sensations. This is something you may never notice, but once it's mentioned, you'll definitely notice it.
Here's an interesting article that describes some of this: https://factsandfigment.com/2020/05/01/the-illusion-of-fanta...
(that article describes the use of projected/highly directional sound, but not the "fade in/out" technique... I'm trying to find a source for it, maybe someone else can confirm)
I'd throw those kids out of the park. Probably why I could never be Walt Disney :-)
- They change the texture of the ground in between lands/park areas so when you walk over it you realize something’s different and look around.
- they “invented” a color, Go-Away Green, which emulates the color of grass, and the fire hydrants and other structural stuff are painted with it. Look in a flower bed next time you are there and you’ll see them if you’re careful, but you don’t realize them until you know.
https://insidethemagic.net/2021/04/disney-go-away-green-lp1/
https://janeaustensworld.com/2010/07/26/invisible-green-a-fa...
We need A/B testing to check whether it increase sales ;)
Have they tried positioning the park West-East vs North-South to check the conversion rates!?
How would they practically do this?
Which is an interesting enough topic on its own, but one thing this allowed was for trash cans to "bottomless": the trash dropped through to conveyor belts below.
No one has to see trash carts or be grossed out watching a trash can be emptied. It also prevented stinky trash drippings from falling on the hardscapes.
Along came the recycling movement, and Disney was quick to implement single stream trash collection and recycling, sorting all trash for recycling after it was collected.
But people were angry that Disney didn't have visible recycling bins next to garbage cans. They would interrupt employees and give them their recyclables. Employees, knowing it all got sorted anyway, would throw it away. Which made people angrier, even if they were told that everything would be sorted for recycling.
So angry, that Disney had to spend a huge amount of money installing "dummy" recycling cans next to the existing trash cans. Cutting holes through reinforced concrete slabs. Major construction.
These also emptied onto the same single stream garbage collection system, but visitors were pacified.
In Florida, Disney actually has corporate control of two municipal incorporations aka actual cities.
They get to control who the half dozen or so residents are, and therefore control who the voters are.
Which besides complete zoning and land-use control, also gives them an amount of police and judicial power.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Buena_Vista,_Florida
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Lake,_Florida
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Dist...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/02/21/disney-wo...
I remember seeing this on a plaque on a porch on Main Street. It had an attribution, which I have forgotten, but could never track down who said it.
In any case, that simple concept permeates the parks and created a benchmark that no other theme park has matched (to my knowledge).
That gives new meaning to the term "crossover".
Nowadays though, I feel like I don’t them. They seem invisible or not even there anymore, until I get home and am trying to figure out how they got to my ankles.
- All water is kept running
- Sloped buildings and structures drain water
- Carbon dioxide traps (and save the victims for analysis)
- Repellent plants
- Chickens at the park (which way mosquitoes)
Even with adblock, reading flow of the text is utterly disrupted.
I grew up in Florida and only left in the past few years so I would go to the parks on a regular basis (once or twice a year). Disney World really doesn't have mosquitoes or at least any noticeable quantities. I legitimately can't remember ever noticing a mosquito bite while at Disney or Universal. I've gotten them at Busch Gardens but only in the animal habitat sections of the park.