Mosquito season has arrived in California. Meaning extra mosquitoes shall be flying round in search of somebody to chunk.
“There’s not a lot of things that we can all agree on, especially in this day and age, right? But if there’s one thing that can bring us together, it’s that mosquitoes suck,” mentioned Brian Brannon, a spokesperson with the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Management District. He mentioned he meant that actually and figuratively.
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Mosquitoes at Orange County Mosquito and Vector Management District in Backyard Grove, CA, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (Picture by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
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Mosquitoes at Orange County Mosquito and Vector Management District in Backyard Grove, CA, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (Picture by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Increase
To decrease nuisance populations and scale back illness transmission, the district has a brand new challenge that sterilizes small male mosquitoes, the invasive Aedes aegypti.
The small black and white mosquito originates from West Africa and was first found flying round Orange County in 2015 and has since elevated in inhabitants, mentioned Amber Semrow, director of scientific technical providers with OC Vector.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel,” mentioned Semrow. The thought of sterilizing pesky pests got here from a 1996 joint program between the California Division of Meals and Agriculture and the U.S. Agriculture Division that had jets launch sterile Mediterranean fruit flies over the Los Angeles Basin to gradual a surge of bugs threatening agriculture in California.
OC Vector hopes that by using a sterile insect method that the sterilized males will outcompete the non-sterilized males. To try this, vector personnel shall be releasing as much as 100,000 sterilized male mosquitoes each week in Mission Viejo starting in Might till someday within the fall.
So, how is a teeny tiny mosquito sterilized? Properly, it begins in a lab contained in the OC Vector facility.
The lab breeding Aedes mosquitoes has a colony of over 100,000. As soon as the mosquito larvae develop into pupae, the men and women are separated earlier than becoming a member of the lab’s colony.
To restrict motion, the grownup males are “chilled” in a 39-degree fridge, then put right into a small plastic chamber the place they’re then positioned into an x-ray machine that makes use of electrical energy to sterilize them.
To ensure that vector lab officers to inform the distinction between sterilized and wild mosquitoes, lab-born mosquitoes are “dusted” with a fluorescent pigment. Then they’re able to be launched.
And no, you gained’t be seeing pink mosquitoes within the wild, the brilliant coloration can solely be seen beneath an extremely violet mild.
The pink dusting will differentiate sterilized from non-sterilized mosquitoes after they’re collected as samples. These will give officers details about the vary and longevity of the sterilized mosquitoes, in addition to the ratio of untamed to sterilized ones.
“We don’t have to completely get rid of them to reduce the risk of transmission,” mentioned vector ecologist Tim Morgan.
Officers are most involved with the unfold of the Dengue virus, and signs can embrace extreme fevers and complications. Orange County had 54 instances final 12 months that got here from individuals who had traveled internationally. Aedes aegypti may also unfold the zika and chikungunya viruses.
So what can residents do to decrease mosquito populations of their space? Semrow advisable of us usually stroll round their property to verify no standing water has collected.
“Try to really make it a habit. Kind of like when we use our seat belts, right? You just want it to become second nature to go out in the yard after a rain or at least once a week,” Semrow mentioned.
Aedes mosquitoes don’t want rather a lot to thrive, as they will lay their eggs in one thing as small as an upturned water bottle cap.
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