This year’s mosquito season is bad news, but you can protect
yourself and your family
Zzzzzt … zzzzt … zzz– slap! Oh, the sounds of mosquito season’s arrival.
As many South Valley residents have discovered the hard way – red, itchy bites and clouds of the nasty critters – mosquito season is here, and it’s going to be a doozy this year.
“It’s going to be a bad season because of the weather we’ve had this spring,” said Sue Howell, executive director of the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center based in Morgan Hill. “Not only did all that rain leave plenty of standing water behind for mosquitoes to breed in, the rain affected our bird population. A lot of insectivore birds – birds that eat insects like mosquitoes and help control their populations – migrated here as usual, but they didn’t find any insects because of all the rain. So, they left. Now, the bugs are here, but the birds aren’t. That means the mosquitoes are breeding like crazy and the birds aren’t here to eat them.”
The first step in fighting the explosion of the mosquito population is to pay attention to any standing water around your home, Howell said. By making sure water is properly drained and there aren’t spots where water can collect, mosquitoes won’t be breeding around your home and family.
And though the insectivore birds may not be present in abundance, another mosquito predator is: bats.
“We’re very fortunate to have a really healthy population of bats,” said Brant Porter, an interpretive park ranger at Pinnacles National Monument in San Benito County. “We have about 15 different kinds of bats, and most of them are pretty hard-core mosquito eaters. So, even though we have the creek and the reservoir, the bats we have keep the mosquitoes in check pretty well.”
Bats, despite their own fictional blood-sucking reputations, eat mosquitoes and other insects, making them an asset to any garden. Several conservation groups encourage people to build bat houses on their property. The bats live in the houses and feed on mosquitoes around their home, lowering the mosquito population on the property. To get instructions on how to build a bat house, try Bat Conservation International’s Web site, www.batcon.org.
Controlling the number of mosquitoes buzzing about is about more than controlling an annoyance. Mosquitoes carrying West Nile Virus can infect humans they bite, and the virus can cause significant health problems in the elderly or very young children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Though West Nile Virus has not yet been found in mosquitoes in San Benito or Santa Clara counties, mosquitoes in parts of southern California have tested positive for the virus. Birds and tree squirrels in San Benito and Santa Clara counties, however, have tested positive for the virus, leading many to believe it’s only a matter of time before mosquitoes pick up the virus, according to the CDC.
“We’ve been doing a lot research, and we’ve been communicating with other wildlife centers throughout the country, trying to find the best ways to protect our birds and animals from West Nile,” Howell said. “We’ve got a special kind of mesh on the enclosures, we vaccinate our birds and we’ve trained all our volunteers to recognize the symptoms for birds that carry the virus. We have to pay attention to West Nile not only for the health and safety of the animals we care for, but also for our own health and safety. We don’t want any of our staff to end up with West Nile.”
Visitors to the Pinnacles National Monument receive information on West Nile Virus in an effort to keep the general public informed, Porter said. Hikers and campers at the park use all the traditional methods of keeping mosquitoes away, including bug sprays, citronella candles, and long-sleeved shirts and pants to protect themselves from bites.
“I grew up in the South Carolina, where mosquitoes are the state bird,” Porter joked. “So, I’m used to mosquitoes. I get the occasional bite, but they don’t bother me. I’ve seen people use sprays that have 100 percent DEET, and that’s a little bit of an overkill. There are sprays out there that are all natural or that have a lower percentage of DEET that work just fine. I’ve found that campfires also work pretty well for keeping bugs away.”
And though wanting to control the mosquito population on and around your property is understandable, think before you act, Porter warned. Some people have purchased mosquitofish and put them in local ponds or other bodies of water, hoping they will keep the mosquito population down. But mosquitofish, which eat mosquitoes, actually can do more harm than good, according to research done at Dominican University. Mosquitofish, a non-native species to the South Valley, have introduced foreign parasites and diseases that have killed native species of fish and amphibians.
“Sure, mosquitofish eat mosquitoes. But so do other kinds of fish and certainly so do amphibians, such as frogs and toads,” Porter said. “You have to weigh the cost-benefit. If you damage the amphibian population, then that’s one less natural predator of mosquitoes helping to keep them in check. These mosquitofish are also damaging the local ecosystems because they aren’t a native species. People have to make sure that whatever measures they take to control mosquitoes doesn’t damage the rest of the environment.”
