Villagers are asked to monitor their yards for sources of standing water, which are potential mosquito breeding sites.
Villagers asked to monitor mosquito breeding sites
- Published: June 5, 2013
Yellow Springs residents could play a significant role in the Village’s new effort to fight West Nile virus by controlling mosquito larvae and eliminating breeding sites.
“The community needs to take a role so we can eliminate backyard breeding,” Vickie Hennessy of Green Environmental Coalition, or GEC, said this week.
Specifically, villagers need to check their yards for places that hold standing water, where mosquitoes will breed. Such places include flower pots, birdbaths, plastic containers, old tires, tarps, buckets, cans, clogged gutters and holes in trees. Water found should be removed, as should the container, if possible. Those who want to maintain water in containers such as birdbaths are advised to change the water at least once a week, because a mosquito can go from a larva to an adult in that time.
The new initiative aims to control mosquito growth by eliminating larvae with a naturally-occurring larvacide rather than spraying pesticides. Last year, one neighborhood in the south of town was sprayed at the end of summer when a West Nile infected mosquito was found, but many villagers were more concerned about the pesticide than the potential for West Nile. Along with several concerned community members, the GEC met this winter to examine alternatives. In March the group recommended the larvae control method to Council, which approved it.
However, the Greene County Combined Health District does retain the option of spraying if a severe infestation of West Nile mosquitoes were found.
The GEC is working with biology professor Savitha Krishna of Antioch College on the mosquito initiative. Krishna and Hennessy request that villagers who identify a potential source of mosquito larvae that requires larvacide treatment should call the GEC at 767-2109.
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