Forest Pests: Insects, Diseases & Other Damage Agents

Hazards of the Outdoors Written by Terry Price, Georgia Forestry Commission Adapted for the web by the Bugwood Network

Foresters and others who work outside and those who enjoy being in the outdoors are often confronted with hazards that can cause sickness, injury, or death. This booklet provides a brief description of those hazards to help you avoid an unpleasant encounter.

Insects, scorpions, spiders, and ticks are members of a group of animals known as arthropods. Several species can sting or bite, transmit disease causing organisms, cause serious allergic reactions and are considered harmful to humans.

Bees and wasps can also be the cause of injury without stinging. When accidentally disturbed or encountered, these insects can create so much excitement that people often panic and become careless while trying to escape. Individuals have been known to jump from ladders and scaffolding, abandon running machinery (bulldozers, tractors, chainsaws, etc.), throw tools, and even lose control of their automobiles. The injuries sustained while trying to avoid a sting can be severe to fatal.

Mosquitoes are not only annoying when they bite, they can also transmit the disease organisms that cause malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, West Nile virus, and encephalitis.

Deer flies are vicious biters as well as vectors of the bacterium that causes tularemia.

Ticks are vectors of many diseases some of which are Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and tularemia. Tick paralysis is caused by a neurotoxic substance injected by an engorging tick.

These medically important arthropods and the other hazards mentioned in this booklet can be avoided if one will stay alert and be wary of their presence when outdoors.

Table of Contents

• Allergic Reactions
• The Social Wasps and Bees
• Solitary Wasps and Bees
• Treatment of Hymenoptera Stings
• Spiders
• Scorpions
• Ticks
• Stinging Caterpillars
• Biting Flies
• Mosquitoes
• Chiggers
• Wheel Bug
• Snakes
• Centipedes and Leeches
• Plants Causing Contact Dermatitis
• Miscellaneous Hazards

References

Ebeling, Walter 1975. Urban Entomology. Univ. Cal. Div. Agri. Sci.

Goddard, Jerome, 1993. Physician’s Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance. CRC Press, Inc.

James, Maurie T., Howard, Robert F. 1971. Herms’ Medical Entomology. The MacMillan Co., London.

Kettle, D. S., Medical and Veterinary Entomology. John Wiley & Sons.

Piek, Tom, Editor, 1986. Venoms of The Hymenoptera. Academic Press.

Wasserman, Gary S., Anderson, Philip C. 1984. Loxoscelism and Necrotic Arachnidism. J. Toxicol.-Clin. Toxicol., 21(4&5), 451-472.

Weathersby, A. Burns 1984. Wet Salt for Envenomization. J. Ga. Entomol. Soc. 19(1): 6-8.