Lordy, Those Flies! Tormented Beachgoers Should See Relief Soon

Check out nearly any Facebook group in northern Ocean County in recent days in the mornings and you'll find at least one person asking this question: "How are the flies at the beach?"

From Brick to South Seaside Park, there have been complaints, especially in the last few days, about flies making time spent on the beach more about swatting than sunning.

But are there really more flies on the beach this summer? And what can you do to keep the nasty critters from chomping as you enjoy the fleeting days of summer?

The state Department of Environmental Protection said it does not track black fly existence nor keep tabs on complaints about the insect, which is found throughout the region.

Dan Santaniello, director of Brick Township's Recreation Department, which oversees the township's beaches, said it has been an average summer for the most part but said he has indeed noticed an increased presence of the pests in recent days.

"The last two days have been terrible," he said, adding that he thinks it was more noticeable because people are trying to squeeze the last possible beach days out of summer.

"Plus we got these flies on the two hottest days of the year," he said, so they were even more pesky on days people simply wanted to cool off. The Shore area has had a fairly steady west wind for the last few days, and when that happens, it ushers the flies across the bay right onto the beach.

The impact, however, is it has kept folks off the beach. "Today I let the badge checker go home early," Santaniello said. "People heard about the flies and stayed away."

"Sometimes our (Brick) beaches are worse than others because we're right across the street from the bay," he said. That is a common theme with areas that have reported issues with the flies in recent days: nearness to Barnegat Bay.

Santaniello has dealt with the summer black flies for years, going back to when he was a lifeguard at Brick Beach in his late teens.

"I remember being in a sweatshirt and sweatpants in 90-degree weather just to keep them off me," he said with a laugh. "Some of our torps (the bright red-orange torpedeos, used during beach rescues) would be black they were covered with so many flies."

According to a fact sheet published by the Rutgers NJAES Cooperative Extension, there are 38 species of black flies in New Jersey, and they are found almost everywhere there is running water. The insect, part of the family Simuliidae, is found in moist habitats, such as the area surrounding Barnegat Bay.

In New Jersey, Simulium jenningsi is the most notorious human biter, the publication said. Blood feeding normally occurs in the hours leading up to sunset, but can also occur in the early morning and they bite more on overcast or humid days. Black flies do not pierce the skin they way mosquitoes do, but instead "shred and tear the skin in order for blood to pool, and then suck it up," according to the publication. And black flies will crawl under clothing to reach desirable places to blood feed.

The bites can produce severe allergic reactions in some people, but the black flies encountered in New Jersey are not known to carry dangerous diseases, according to the publication.

So what can you do to deal with the little buggers, aside from wrapping yourself head to foot or avoiding the beach?

Bug repellents that offer high concentrations of DEET are a good deterrent. If you don't like using the chemical repellents, oil of lemon eucalyptus and citronella, and commercially available repellents containing active ingredients such as catnip oil, geranium oil, peppermint oil, and soybean oil, also may help. Be sure to read the instructions carefully before applying to children.

The best relief, however? A change in the wind direction. "It's almost like an on-off switch," Santaniello said.

And according to the National Weather Service, we should be seeing just that: winds are predicted to be out of the north, shifting to the east, in the next day or so, which will send the black flies back from whence they came.

If the storms that are predicted hold off just enough, the Labor Day weekend could bring a good, fly-free beach time.

Cross your fingers. And keep that fly swatter handy.

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A cropped photo shows two of a half-dozen flies or so that landed on a blanket Wednesday afternoon at the beach in Seaside Park. Photos by Gregory Andrus