Mosquito plane taking off following first rains
(CNS): Following the first heavy rainfall of this year's wet season at the weekend government officials said the Mosquito Research and Control Unit (MRCU) will be carrying out aerial control operations against the aedes aegypti starting this week. The programme will be focusing on Grand Cayman's two main population centers, central George Town and West Bay in order to keep down the numbers of the mosquito which carries the dengue virus and tends to breed in urban environments .Depending on the weather conditions operations are expected to begin early Friday evening with initial flights focusing on the George Town area. Flights will continue for several weeks at around 6 pm every night.
Experts at the MRCU said that the aedes aegypti mosquito’s numbers are expected to increase with the start of the rains and while dengue is not endemic in the Cayman Islands the population of this mosquito needs to be minimized as there is always the possibility of travellers introducing the virus into the islands.
The public can help the MRCU in its control efforts against this type of mosquito by keeping yards free from any containers where rainwater can accumulate. The aedes aegypti mosquito is commonly found breeding in water drums, buckets, discarded car tyres and any other vessel capable of holding water.
Any questions or concerns about aedes aegypti can be directed to Dr Alan Wheeler (alan.wheeler@gov.ky) or by phoning the Mosquito Research & Control Unit (949 2557).
Category: Science and Nature
May I suggest a modification to Swine's Mosquito trap? If you put a few drops of olive oil in the trap, it will spread out in a thin layer on the surface of still water. Having a different surface tension than the water, the larvae are unable to "hang" on the surface, cannot breathe, and asphyxiate.
The Bop is not needed, and the whole process becomes more environmentally friendly, and biodegradeable.
A much proven remedy is a mixture of crushed garlic and ginger directly applied onto your entire body. and i mean the entire body-head to toe.
this will radiate profusely keeping away any mosquitoe or pestilence within radius of yourself. A proven green energy science is all we need to survive in these hard times !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mosquitoes or pestilence are not the only things that will be keeping away::))
Here's another remedy, don't know if it is proven:
Marmite may keep away mosquitoes. It is claimed that the yeasty spread be the perfect defence against mozzies.
I am constantly dreaming of a pure clean O-zone. this is acheivable if we only leave the mosquitoes alone to live freely in their enviroments. We intsead should clear the landfills and chunk that is littered all over Cayman. God bless our islands!!!!
Bring back the GM mosquitoes it worked so well and who cares if it's controversial, it is chemical free and IT WORKS!
I'm not sure if this would be widely accepted or not, but I will throw it out there any way. I have personally tried mosquito traps and they have proven to work, I am not sure if it had an impact on the mosquito population around my yard, as it was such a small scale scenerio, but i know for a fact that i certainly depleted thousands of mosquitos, almost 100% chemical free. I am sure that if a lage portion of the population did the same, it would have a detrimental impact on the mosquito population. Here is how I did it. I found an old discarded 55gal drum and cut it in half, essentially making two large buckets from it, as the top was sealed, and the bottome was sealed. I then found a piece of plywood, and cut a small strip of it 6in wide, and just long enough to reach across to both sides of the open ends of the buckets, then i cut a circle at the center, just big enough that i could squeeze a piece of 4in pipe through it. I put screen over the opening on top of the bucket, and cut a 3-3/4 hole in the center, so that i could also squeeze the pipe though, and i taped the screen to the sides of the drum, essentially blocking off any opening around the sides so mosquitos couldnt escape. I took a 9in long peice of 4in pvc pipe, squeezed it though the opening i cut in the plywood, 2in out one side of the ply, and the rest was on the other side of the ply, i took the side with the longest length of pipe, and squeeed it though the opening i cut in the screen, and simply rested it there on top. Now the only way for mosquitoes to get in was through that pipe, and the only way they could get out was through that pipe. Then i placed it in a shady spot under my mango tree and filled it up to about 4in below the bottom of the pipe with fresh rain water and through a couple peices of decaying foliage in there. Naturally mosquitoes fly straight upwards after laying eggs, the chances of them flying back out through the pipe are almost zero, as they will land on the inside wall of the barrel right at the surface of the water. In order for them to get back out, they would have to fly to the center of the barrel, , then fly downwards about 6in, and find that small 4in pipe to get back out through, which is very unlikly, not to say that some did not escape, as i am sure that some were lucky enough to do so, but i can say this as a fact, after a few weeks, my two traps were taming with mosquito larvae, as well as adult egg laying mosquitoes, a lot of the adults died inside also, as there was no way for them to escape. Once i observed that there was a large amount of larvae, i simply went inside and got my can of Bop, and shot a quick spray through the screen to the inside of the barrel to kill the trapped adults, once the adults were dead, i simply removed one side of the screen, opened it, and just turned it over! Now my lawn has been watered, and it was full of mosquito larvae, that are now dead because they have no water to survive in, quickly transforming them into good organic fertilizer! I must say, now my lawn is a lot greener in that spot. Not sure if it would be a good idea for the government to run some tests with that idea in mosquito breeding grounds. Instead of encouraging people to discard potential breeding spots, maybe they could give examples of how toattract them and trap them. Its environmentally friendly, very easy, could be done without chemicals, doesnt need planes and pellets and cancer causing agents. Most of all, it will save sh!tloads of money! (Which is probably why they havent thought about it yet by the looks of the current spending habits of our government!).
Peace out!
Great idea! But how do all the mozzies find their way in through the pipe?
Well i'm not a scientist, but i presume that they pic up the scent of the water or some thing, i guess the same way the are able to find water trapped in a discarded tire, its not like they can see the water sitting inside the tire when they fly over it. I guess they located the trapped water, and just find their way in to it through the pipe….but if you doubt it, i would encourage you to give it a try on your own and see how it works, even if its just with a simple bucket. you can even just leave it completly open and just fill it with water, only you will not be able to trap the breeding adults, but you will still find the larvae in abundance within a few weeks, but make sure to keep constant check on it, as you do not want to leave the larvae too long to transform to adults. just remember to place it in a cool shady area and not out in the sun.
You can build a bat house much cheaper and faster, and the bats will continue killing a much larger quantity of mosquitoes without needing any "bop" intervention from you.
This is also a good idea for anyone who has the time and skill to do so. With a trap, we are able to see for ourselves the large amount of larvae being depleted. Although we know that bats do eat mosquitoes, we wont see how much they are eating, but with traps it kind of gives people visual references of what their work is doing, and can have an idea of how much mosquitoes they are getting rid of with their efforts. These two ideas are great, and are indeed effective strategies.
Sounds more like a mosquito breeding pen.
That is essentially what it is! A peice of foliage that is able to hold water is enough for mosquitos to effectively breed in. If we discard everything that can hold water in our yards, they will simply find somewhere else to lay. By attracting them, providing a bucket or anything that can easily be emptied of water, and allowing them to lay their eggs, then when you see the larvae building up, allows us to destroy them before they turn in to breeding adults. If they lay eggs outside of our yards, they will still breed. If we attract them, and kill their larvae, we will esentially be depleting the next generation of breeding adults by the millions, and if a good portion of the population did this, i am certain it will have a detrimental impact on the mosquito population. it is very easy, can be done virtualy cost free, all it takes is to moniter it every 2 or 3 days, and dump the water out when the larvae are present.
Hmm you did good until the last sentence.
My apologies for letting you down at the last second, but it is what it is! They can effortlessly figure out how to spend tens of thousands of dollarsevery year with things that damage the environment, and use chemicals and cancer causing agents, but they can not figure out what a simple bucket of water can do. Common sense isnt really that common!
Good Ol' Caymanian Common Sense is everywhere. Just ask Steve.
Thx for the warning. If you decide to make and sell these contraptions, our population will be zzzzzzzzzzzzapped in no time!