Posted on 08/24/2009 5:14:03 PM PDT by Coleus
Backyard swimming pools in foreclosed homes have become popular breeding grounds for mosquitoes in North Jersey — and officials are fighting back with fish. Bergen County Mosquito Control workers have dumped some 30,000 fish in abandoned, stagnant pools of foreclosed homes and other spots to control an explosion of mosquitoes without pesticides. The fish, called gambusia affins, or simply, mosquitofish, are no staple on restaurant menus. But they favor mosquito larvae and pupae.
"They eat the mosquito larvae up like piranhas," said Peter Rendine, the county mosquito control program's chief inspector, who has gone several times this summer to a Hackettstown hatchery to pick up tanks filled with the 2-inch-long fish. The extremely wet June and July — combined with the jump in foreclosed homes due to the economic recession — have made this summer far busier than usual for North Jersey's mosquito control officials.
Normally, the Bergen County Mosquito Control office will have received about 500 calls by now for mosquito help. This year, they've already had about 1,000. "It's a bad year. It hasn't been this bad in six or seven years," said Pete Pluchino, division director for Bergen's program. Eric Green, superintendent of Passaic County Mosquito Control, said he and his 14 staffers are working long hours to control the increased mosquito problem, especially in towns such as Wayne and Wanaque, which flood regularly after downpours.
"Just when we think things are drying up, we get hit with more rain," Green said. The backyard pool problem is making it worse. When county mosquito control officials get complaints about pools, they normally tell the homeowner to drain or properly maintain their pool. But with homes under bank ownership, many pools languish, grow fetid and become prime spawning sites for some of the 63 species of mosquitoes that call North Jersey home.
The banks, Pluchino said, don't want to spend the money to keep pool pumps operating to circulate the water. John Heron, who lives across from a foreclosed home with a pool in Paramus, called the county for help recently. "We were getting eaten alive," he said. "He said, 'Dude, we're getting chewed!' " said Rendine, who stopped by with mosquitofish. The foreclosed home stood vacant, with pictures of snowmen and Santa still in the front windows. The pool water was a dark pea-green, and stagnant.
When Rendine returned a few days later, there were no mosquitoes, but fish swam happily in the murky pool. Heron was happy, too. "You're doing a great job!" he told Rendine, then joked, "Can you put some trout in there too?" The county has used the fish this summer in pools, ponds and other stagnant water. The state provides the fish to counties for free, Rendine said. When fish aren't a good option, the mosquito crew controls with pesticides in liquid or granular form, which can target either larvae or adult flying mosquitoes.
Rendine, Pluchino and Warren Staudinger recently rechecked a swampy area between Newcomb Road and Saddle River in Ridgewood. "Normally this would all be dry as dust this time of year," Rendine said as he stood in knee-high rubber boots amid the muck and several inches of water. Thanks to 10 inches of rain in June and another 4 this month, Saddle River has repeatedly overflowed, and water gets trapped in the low-lying areas of the swamp, which don't get a chance to dry out. Each storm generates a new brood of mosquitoes.
Staudinger walked through the swamp spraying pellets of bacillus thuringiensis israeliensis, or BTI, a larvicide, into the water. "If we don't do this, the people in those homes on Newcomb Road will get hammered with mosquitoes," Rendine said. Mosquitoes cannot breed in flowing water, but any stagnant water source — even as small as an upturned bottle cap — can be a place for eggs to hatch into larvae and eventually adult mosquitoes.
Pluchino said residents should make a thorough search of their property for stagnant water. He said people will often say they have no water on their property, but the team has frequently seen mosquitoes breed in gutters, upturned Frisbees, old tires and tarps. "I live in West Milford, and when I go home from work, I'm always after people by the lakeshore, saying, 'Turn over the paddle boats! Otherwise they'll be breeding sites for mosquitoes!' " Rendine said. "I can't get away from this stuff, even when I'm supposed to be off work having a beer."
Even tree holes can be a breeding spot. At one stop recently, Rendine brandished a turkey baster, which the team uses to suck water out of tree holes. "That's how wacky we are about this," he said. At the swamp near Newcomb Road, he peered into a notch between two tree branches where water had collected and used a scoop to capture some of the dark brown liquid. Sure enough, mosquito larvae wriggled in the water. "That's Aedes triseriatu, a tree cavity mosquito," Rendine said. "That will bite you all day. That's a bad biter, a bad biter!"
Only female mosquitoes bite. They need a blood meal to provide nutrition for their eggs. The heavy rains may have brought out more mosquitoes, but the downpours have had one significant benefit: the number of Culex mosquitoes — a key transporter of West Nile Virus — has plummeted, Green said. Culex larvae thrive in dirty water, but the constant rain has flushed pollution from many spawning areas. Green said he has yet to collect any West Nile-positive mosquitoes this summer. Bergen officials also say their tests have come up negative for West Nile. "Normally we see them by mid-July, but nothing so far," Green said. "That will probably change as things start to dry up in August."
Gee I always wondered why I never wanted to live there.
The Mosquito Fish in FL are related to the guppy. I guess because they are?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.