Canadian farms may be to blame for ‘severe’ fly infestation in Maine town

The insect issue that has descended on one small town in northern Maine seems almost Biblical, but the swarm of locusts has been replaced by hordes of flies.

In St. Francis, the pesky insects gather on the walls of homes, and inside them. They land on you if you’re outside. They buzz around inside vehicles, according to Bill Sheehan of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, who visited the town recently.

“It’s a real severe outbreak,” he described. “It’s super annoying to the point of you becoming emotional. … As I was talking to people the other night, flies were landing on my face, all over me. My truck was full of them.”

St. Francis is a town of 485 people, the town’s website says. The town is in the far north of the state, and borders New Brunswick, Canada. 

The fly problem has gone on for about a decade, according to Sheehan. But it wasn’t always this bad, residents told the Bangor Daily News.

“It seemed to improve after 2014 but last year, all hell broke loose again,” town Selectwoman Mary Landry said, according to the paper.

Resident Jake Harvey said his family uses fly trap bags, which have a capacity of 40,000 flies. There’s four of them on the family’s property, he told the Daily News.

“They last about two or three days and they need to be replaced because they are literally full,” he said, according to the newspaper.

The problem may actually lie across the border, according to Sheehan. There’s large, industrial farms nearby in Canada, which could be breeding grounds for the flies. While he said he isn’t an expert on how flies breed, Sheehan noted that flies can multiply in manure if it isn’t handled properly. He noted that other organic materials that are moist could also lead to swarms of new flies.

Sheehan said he’s attempting to work with Canadian environmental officials on a plan to mitigate the issue, if the farms are found to indeed be the source. His counterpart to the north was on vacation last week.

Until then, Harvey described to the Daily News how he and his family go about their daily lives.

“We roam the house regularly with fly swatters killing the ones that make it in,” he said.

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