Killing them softly: Santa Clara County to ensure immature mosquitoes never grow up

From Palo Alto Online
February 10, 2020

Santa Clara County will unleash an eco-friendly larvicide on mosquitoes in the Palo Alto Baylands on Wednesday.

Part of an annual tradition since 1992, the county’s Vector Control District — tasked with monitoring and managing the spread of diseases such as the plague, rabies and other maladies that can come from rodents or insects like mosquitoes — will be covering Palo Alto Baylands trails with a soil bacterium esoterically known as the Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis or Bti.

What’s more important to know than the egregiously long and hard-to-pronounce name of the bacteria is that the marsh trails of the Baylands are closed to the public during the treatment, which starts around 7:30 a.m. and is expected to last several hours, according to a county press release.

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