The people in Davis County feel like they're being picked on. The pests are tiny but have complex names like culex tarsalis and aedes sierrensis.
They use riverways like highways, migrating toward the mountains as they torment hapless humans on the land. They are the mosquitoes.The mosquitoes haven't changed much over the eons, but the number of people living near the water has. The roughly 7,000 people who move in each year have increased the complaints, Davis County Commissioner Dan McConkie said.
In a county where two-thirds of the land is covered with water - the Great Salt Lake makes up about 58 percent of the total square mileage - the ongoing war with mosquitoes has become an almost personal issue for residents who contend that they have more than their fair share of the pests.
"It seems like the complaints issued are related to the growth rate," McConkie said. "It wasn't that there are more people being bitten, but I'm assuming there's just more people to report it."
Gary Hatch, manager of the county's mosquito abatement district, also thinks newcomers may take a while to get used to the problem. Older residents in his 5-year-old neighborhood seem to have more of a tolerance to the bugs than do newer ones, he said.
To let the curious know more about mosquito control, the mosquito abatement facility in Kaysville is giving an open house during the last week of June, National Mosquito Control Awareness Week.
While it seems ironic that the minuscule insects have a week of recognition all their own, a walk around the facility gives an eye-opening lesson in warfare.
It takes a little over a week to spray the county for the 15 species of mosquitoes that inhabit its waters and wetlands, said Hatch. In the summer, about 16 people are hired full time to spray and kill the pests. They use trucks, four-wheelers and an airplane to get about 32,000 acres covered a year.
Behind the chemical storage building is a light trap, a metal birdfeeder-looking device that attracts bugs with light and sucks them into mason jars. Ten such traps dot the county, collecting four samples a week of hundreds of mosquitoes that workers painstakingly sort and count in the lab.
The workers look for trends by keeping tabs on the numbers of different species caught at the light trap. Trouble may be brewing if there are too many or too few of a species that likes to hang out in an area.
Along with the chemicals stored in a temperature-controlled, self-contained building, the abatement programs use natural means to keep down the mosquito population.
One chemical, altosid, mimics a mosquito's growth hormone to keep mosquito pupae from developing into adults.
Another control, gambusia fish, is placed in water and standing ponds to eat mosquito larvae. About 10,000 of the 1-inch brown fish are taken to Davis County from a Salt Lake holding pond during the summer months, then collected for the winter.
With fogging, spraying and gambusia fish eating their hearts out, the abatement program has a 90 percent to 95 percent success rate, Hatch said. But this is small comfort, he said, given the massive number of bugs. "Ten percent of 10 million is still a million."
For residents scratching over the 10 percent of mosquitoes that escape abatement efforts, Hatch recommended using a DEET-containing insect repellent. Products with lower DEET concentration should be used on children.
Hatch also warned against multiple applications. One even application in an evening should usually do the job, he said.
That and remembering the many tiny tormentors that have already made it to mosquito heaven thanks to the abatement district.
The Davis County Mosquito Abatement facility is inviting the public to its weeklong open house from June 22-27. It is located at 85 N. 600 West in Kaysville.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Larvae-eating fish need safe place to swim
Gambusia fish are looking for a safe place to call home.
The gambusia population hit major lows this year after some gambusia-eating bluegills invaded their holding moat, which was drained to kill off everything and start over.
The setback means fewer of the little fish that gobble mosquito larvae for both the Salt Lake and Davis county mosquito abatement districts this year, though a solution to the shortage may be just around the corner.
Davis County Commissioner Dan McConkie said Centerville's new debris catch basin may become a second holding pond for the fish.
As part of its flood prevention program, Centerville will be building a $600,000 debris catch basin this summer using a grant with matched funds from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Centerville City Manager Steve Thacker said he has not been approached about keeping the gambusia in the basin but called it a "very interesting idea."