California Barn Life: Mosquitos

7/1/2012

Mosquito and Vector Control

Bakersfield is an agricultural community and according to Wikipedia, Kern County is the fourth most productive agricultural county in the USA. Kind of hard to assume anything else with a name like Baker's field. Really. That's how the city got its name. Colonel Baker had a residence and a field that was used as a stop-over by travelers. Baker's field became Bakersfield.

We have excellent access to all things grown or raised, but that also means we get some of the pests that accompany those products. Mosquitos are of particular concern to our county leaders. As such, our county has developed a vector control program. The Vector Control Program provides for the surveillance, mitigation and educational outreach regarding animals that are capable of transmitting diseases to humans, which includes involvement with seasonal plague surveillance and response to ongoing and emerging vectors.

Mosquito Abatement Truck

Jimmy, our mosquito guy

I don't know a lot about the program, but I thought I'd share what I do know since the mosquito guy was at our barn this week and was nice enough to answer my zillion questions. Essentially, each driver has an assigned area that he is responsible for monitoring. Our guy monitors areas of the northeast along both sides of the Kern River. He deposits mosquito fish into the ponds and standing water that he finds near the river. He also adds mosquito fish to water troughs, abandoned swimming pools, and any other place where he finds standing water.

The mosquito fish are free.

Mosquitos lay their eggs in quiet water, but the mosquito fish eat those eggs which helps to reduce/eliminate the mosquito problem. Mosquitos are of grave concern here in California as they are vectors of the West Nile Virus. Kern County has had a fair amount of human and equine cases of West Nile, but I can't say how our numbers compare with other counties. Here are the known cases in Kern County since 2007.

West Nile Virus Cases

To give you an idea of the size of Kern County, it's pretty big, here is a map of California with Kern County shaded orange and Bakersfield and nearby towns shaded in red.

lytha

7/1/2012 06:53:42 am

KILL THEM ALL, mosquito fish! (and how cool, a mosquito control guy!!)

i read that mosquitos are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal. our trout eat the ones in our ponds, but i found larvae in one of my horse troughs yesterday so i'll be cleaning that out. every house in germany has rain barrels and often they are not covered (ours are not). this is a big problem, but we don't have West Nile..yet.

we have a lot of salamanders and frogs on our property and they really help.

Karen

7/1/2012 08:54:26 am

Lytha - one advantage you have is that your winters are cold enough to kill all that stuff. Our winters in the central valley can be pretty mild which can prevent eggs and other larvae from dying off.

I would like to know which continents and countries deal with West Nile. Do other European countries have a problem?

Frogs and salamanders are nature's "mosquito guy." I hope you pay them well! :0)

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Not-So-Speedy Dressage