From the Los Altos Town Crier
August 17, 2022
The drought baking California has rendered water-restricting local lawns and yards arid, but mosquitoes have fared well this summer nonetheless. Santa Clara County Vector Control District surveillance identified mosquitoes with West Nile virus in parts of Cupertino and started spraying insecticide to target the insects last week, with similar spraying last month in parts of Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose.
The county maintains surveillance throughout local cities including Mountain View and Los Altos using carbon dioxide traps – which attract hungry adult mosquitoes seeking the exhalations that indicate a likely mammalian meal – and gravid traps, boxes of standing water baited with the funky aroma of rotting alfalfa to attract pregnant mosquitoes ready to start a new generation. The district also uses light traps – a green metal device with a light bulb and a jar of captured insects at its bottom – to monitor the ambient abundance of mosquitoes in the area, which fluctuates seasonally and tends to rise with warm summer weather.