For Week Ending August 8, 2008

 

MOSQUITO COUNTS - Mosquito numbers remain relatively high this week in some areas.  The area between Hotchkiss and Paonia along Back River Road and along Hwy 133 continues to have high numbers all along the route and will likely be fogged this coming week as it was rained out last week.  Numbers in the town of Paonia are variable (see map), and we will try to spot spray on Monday.  The end of Colorado Avenue under Stewart Ditch is a hot spot, with large numbers of Culex mosquitoes found there this week.  The old sewage plant has the highest counts of all, but the total numbers are less than half of what they were at their peak in early July, indicating we are having some success at keeping the numbers below what they might have been.  We have been trapping on Lamborn and Stewart Mesas over the past few weeks and have been using the trap results to help us locate new breeding sites, of which there were many.  This week's trap results were just above our thresholds, but much better than the previous weeks' results, which tells us we're closing down some of the breeding sites and getting the numbers under control.  The larvicide crew tells us they're finding very few larvae this week, probably because of the storms.  Hopefully this will be the start of the wind-down of the season.

 

HOT LINE - We've been noticing a gradual change in tone of the messages left on the hot line.  While people are understandably frustrated when they have mosquitoes, there are more requests for trapping and larviciding instead of just spraying, and more people letting us know about where the mosquitoes are coming from instead of just asking to be sprayed.   This is the start of a real community effort which should help us control mosquitoes more effectively.  Thanks again to our trapping volunteers, who make great ambassadors and educators and help us do a good job finding and killing those mosquitoes!

 

WEST NILE VIRUS - As of August 6, there were 15 confirmed cases of West Nile Fever or Meningitis in Colorado, none on the Western Slope.  This is one more case than last week.  None of the mosquitoes caught in Delta County have yet been found to have the virus.  See the CDPHE link to the left for the latest updates.  It's scheduled to warm up this week, so be sure to keep using mosquito repellent if you're out at dusk or later.