Skip to main content

Week 6

 

Mosquito ID

I'm continuing to practice my ID skills. They've improved a lot over the past two weeks! I can confidently identify a perturbans now, after counting about 5,000 of them! We are mostly catching perturbans in our CDCs and Culex in our gravid traps. We are also finding japonicus and other Aedes.  I will continue to practice using the ID guide and learning what mosquitoes commonly found in this area look like. 

Connecting ID to Trapping 

I've started to find connections between the trap site and the mosquito samples collected. Perturbans are commonly found in swampy areas, and I've noticed that my trap sites in really swampy towns collect a lot of perturbans, especially if my CDC is hanging close to a marsh. These swampy towns are also probably most likely to be exposed to EEE as a result. 

Marsh site in Sturbridge.





Public Education

When I'm out trapping, people walking by will sometimes ask me about what I'm doing. I really enjoy this part of the job because I get to share everything I've learned with them. I like explaining how the traps work and why we are setting them up. I've had a few people come up and thank me for the work that I'm doing, which was really nice and motivating me to do this work. While we haven't found any diseased mosquitoes yet, I still think that public outreach and awareness is vital. It's important that the public is aware of the risk and knows what they can do to prevent disease transmission and also what CMMCP can do to help them. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 9

West Nile Virus Positives This week, we had three West Nile Virus positive pools this week: in Blackstone, Natick, and Worcester. Blackstone and Natick are in my route, so I trapped the positive mosquitoes in those towns. It's a little scary knowing I was so close to mosquitoes with WNV. This positive case has also brought new meaning to my job as a trapper. I'm glad I was part of the team that caught these WNV cases and were able to help out the public. I think these positives will peak public curiosity and worry about mosquitoes, so I think I will have a lot more people come up and ask my questions. So, I'll make sure to brush up on my knowledge of WNV so that I can educate them and hopefully minimize their risk of contracting a vector-borne disease.  Golden Anopheles  Last week we found many mosquitoes uncommon to central Massachusetts in our traps. On Thursday, Audrey and I were processing mosquitoes when she noticed a very large, golden bug in her trap. We didn't k...
1 comment
Read more

Final Week

 This week has been extremely busy because we had 14 pools test positive for WNV across 10 towns. So, on top of our typical trapping routes, we also had to go back and trap at the sites that tested positive. We needed all hands on deck to trap this week in order to finish our regular routes and revisit the positive sites. Most of the positive samples were pooled from towns in the Northern route. Two of my towns ( in the Southern route) tested positive (Blackstone and Natick), so I went back to Blackstone to set a new trap (CDC and gravid) and our entomologist went to the my Natick site.  This week, neighboring projects also have found their first cases of EEE in mosquitoes. So far this year, the neighboring projects have found viruses first and we follow, so if the pattern stays the same, we might also find EEE soon.  This is my last week at CMMCP, and I’m definitely feeling a bit sad to say goodbye. It’s been a great experience, and I’ve learned so much over the season. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 10

 New Traps This week I set two new kinds of traps: BG traps and Ovi traps. I set them both at a site in Blackstone that tested positive for WNV and caught an Asian tiger mosquito last week. We especially want to monitor the areas  I set the BG and Ovi traps at the site that tested positive for WNV last week to increase surveillance. The BG trap doesn't catch many mosquitoes, but it has been the most effective at catching Asian Tiger mosquitoes. It attracts the mosquitoes with a BG lure, a stick that is supposed to smell like people (but to me it smells awful!). After the mosquitoes fly to the trap, they get sucked in by a fan and trapped in a net. Fortunately, I did not catch any Asian Tiger mosquitoes, so we are safe for now.  Ovi traps are made to collect mosquito eggs. They are small black cups with a special paper inside that the eggs stick to after being laid. Processing Ovi traps takes about a months time. First, I have to set the traps - which is 6 cups at a time. ...
Post a Comment
Read more