Chapter 4

 

Controlling Mosquitoes: Successes and Colossal Failures

 

by Surac

 

Let us all stand in awe to honor mothers. They will do anything, and sometimes everything, for their children. I am talking not only about humans, but all species. In this respect, mother mosquito is no different. For her eggs to thrive, grow, and survive to fly into the next generation, she must find standing water to lay them in. If she finds that nice quiet pool she is looking for in your yard, she will look no further. Her babies will be born in your yard, bite you, and once again, lay their eggs in the same pool of water. Generations of mosquitoes can and will do this indefinitely. We actually don't know how far a mother mosquito will fly to find a place to lay her eggs, but my best guess, knowing mothers as I do, is that she will fly as far as she needs to—she has to, for her children. Now, as far as you are concerned, you want her family to be as far away from your family as possible. We attract birds to your yards by providing them with food, water, and a place to build their nests—when we do these things, the birds stay. The same process works with mosquitoes. It's kind of tough to not provide them with food (plants), and shelter (also plants). We love our gardens and don't want to give them up. The trick to keeping mosquitoes out of your yard is to destroy, or treat, their potential nursery sites—standing water.

One single tire left outside can and will produce thousands of flying mosquitoes every week. One mosquito hunter I read about drained and counted all the mosquito larvae he found in an uncovered rain barrel—it was upwards of 25,000 larvae. Imagine 25,000 flying mosquitoes in your yard!

We have to talk here about garbage. I'll be brief. Basically, PICK IT UP. I don't care whose it is. I don't care if it's not yours. I don't care where it is. I don't care how it got there. PICK IT UP. PUT IT IN YOUR GARBAGE CAN OR RECYCLING BIN. Mosquitoes and garbage lying on the ground go together like peanut butter and jelly; like ham and eggs. If nothing else, your neighborhood will look better. It will look like someone cares, so your house is less likely to attract a burglar; your house will be worth more money if the neighborhood doesn't look like a garbage dump.

In my neighborhood, garbage/mosquito hunting has turned into somewhat of an archaeological pursuit. A beer can that needed to be opened with a can opener was on the ground, breeding mosquitoes, for at least 60 years. (!) Pop-tops became standard on beverage cans some time in the 1970's, so a beer can with a pop-top opening has been a haven for mosquito larvae for about 50 years. In that time, in the warm season, each of these two cans may have produced hundreds of flying mosquitoes every week. Twelve weeks of summer, times a modest estimate of 200 mosquitoes produced per week, equals 2400 mosquitoes per season, per can, or 4800 mosquitoes mosquitoes together. In the 50 years these two carelessly discarded cans have been on the ground, they have produced a modest, minimun estimate of 240,000 mosquitoes.

I am not making this up.

It's very simple...boring, really; eliminate or treat all standing water, and you will eliminate the mosquitoes in your yard. Will you eliminate them all? Maybe not—you can't always control what that knucklehead neighbor of yours is doing or not doing. Indeed, the negligence of one person can ruin the efforts of many (and not only in mosquito hunting!)

As for colossal failures in mosquito control, in Chapter 3 we covered aerial fogging, which isn't a failure; it is just an expensive, very short term, desperate stop-gap. As a last ditch effort, it works as advertised.

Are mosquitoes attracted to light? No. They are attracted to heat, and carbon dioxide and perhaps carbon monoxide. This is how “The Mosquito Magnet” and like devices work—they create heat, using a propane tank, and an attractant that mimics your breath. When the mosquito approaches, it is sucked into the unit by a small fan, and trapped. These units work very well, but again, they only catch flying insects, and, until you eliminate the nursery, you will have an infinite number of mosquitoes to catch. The units sell for several hundred dollars apiece; a tank of propane is about $20 and will last a month; accessories (attractant, etc.) will probably cost you about $50 a season. While trying to hunt down where mosquitoes are originating, I have found these units helpful.

There are some devices being sold that purport to attract mosquitoes to an ultraviolet lamp and then electrocute them. If any of these units kill a mosquito, it is merely by accident. Most of what they will kill are our bigger moths—some of the largest, like the Imperial and Luna moths, are in serious decline. Gee, I wonder why. Before you who own these units get your knickers all in a knot: one study counted and identified all the insects killed in one night by one of these units. Of 14,000 insects, about 10 of them were mosquitoes. You are wasting electricity and annoying your neighbors, who can't sleep because of the noise.

“Mosquito Shoo” geraniums and the like? Well, the flowers are nice.

Finally, we have to ask the question; do we want to eliminate all mosquitoes? People have tried in the past. It was thought that a devoted effort could at least eliminate all mosquitoes on an island. The effort failed for a variety of reasons. Now, we have gene splicing in our toolbox, and there have been several reports of people who say they can splice in this or that gene on the mosquito to either eliminate it completely, or just eliminate the pathogens it carries. It sure sounds good. But humans seem to have a really bad reputation for meddling with nature and instead making a real muddled mess of things. Mosquitoes are definitely part of the food web, although I don't know of any animal that lives predominantly off of mosquitoes. They may be more important as pollinators, especially of plants with small flowers, which they seem to favor. If they are wiped out by our hand, we may unwittingly and unintentionally take out an unknown number of plant species. There is much to consider before we act.

For all we know, mosquitoes are nature's way of keeping US under control—making us avoid jungles and underbrush where mosquitoes like to hide in the damp shade, and killing us off when our numbers become too great. However, although Mother Nature seems to have cursed us with mosquitoes, she is not without mercy; unlike flies, which are very fast; fleas, which are hard to squish; or chiggers, which you can't see, she has made our fiercest adversary large, slow, lumbering, noisy, and easy to swat. We have, at least, a fighting chance.

Happy hunting!