by Marsha DeMere Gebhardt
Mass mosquito fogging from trucks DOES NOT significantly reduce the mosquito population! It only kills the adult mosquitoes that are flying at that time and are within reach of the spray. St. Louis County Vector Control contracts with municipalities to treat any areas that are home to disease-carrying mosquitoes. The estimated annual cost to Ferguson is $1,500, compared with the thousands that Ferguson had been paying for just the chemical to spray from trucks.
Mosquito fogging does nothing to kill the incredible number of mosquito larva, that breed in as little as a cap-full of standing water around your house and yard. Instead, the spraying stays on plants and trees, and kills the beneficial pollinators and the insects and caterpillars that birds feed to their babies.
SO…it is important for residents to learn what we can do to reduce the impact of mosquitoes on our outdoor living.
Most mosquitos do not carry disease and are known as ‘nuisance mosquitos’. These are the ones we can only deal with ourselves, in the following ways.
Prevent those present from biting you:
- Have a fan blowing on you and others gathered with you. Mosquitoes are weak flyers, so a fan ‘blows them away’!
- Keep bare skin at a minimum. Wear lightweight long sleeves and long pants.
Reduce or eliminate the number of mosquitoes in your yard:
- Eliminate standing water wherever possible. Gutters, low areas, tires, etc.
- For standing water that you can’t eliminate, add a piece of a mosquito dunk. These dunks ONLY kill mosquito larva and black fly larva. They are harmless to pets, birds, people….
- Make a Mosquito Bucket of Doom! This will attract female mosquitoes to lay their eggs in the bucket’s water, and the larva will not survive.
Ferguson Parks and Rec will make mosquito dunks available to residents during the ECO Fair at the Farmers Market on August 17. They will also have buckets available so residents can make their own Buckets of Doom by simply adding grass clippings and a stick for the females to enter to lay their eggs. You’ll be welcome to take ingredients for a neighbor or two, as well. If you don’t make it to the ECO Fair, you can find mosquito dunks at most big-box and smaller hardware stores. (At our West Ferguson Neighbors July Gathering, we provided these materials. Other neighborhood organizations might like to do the same at future neighborhood events.)
Here’s to ‘dooming’ the mosquitoes, while celebrating the many other, wonderful, insects…the butterflies, moths, and the many non-stinging native bees and wasps. These are a pleasure to observe, and a vital food source for our native birds.
