PRESS RELEASE: Mosquito Control activity has begun for 2024
April 11, 2024
May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. Protect Yourself from Ticks!
May 15, 2024
Mosquito Control helicopters have been a common sight lately. As have news crews covering the work.
After a dry winter the rains in April and early May have put us back on track for a seemingly normal year.
The mosquito season is as predictable as the weather and so far 2024 is not making it easy. After a dry winter, the Minnesota Department of Natural resources reports that statewide we received an average of 4.19 inches of rain during the month of April, which was 1.28 inches above normal. So far in May we've had rain 7 out of 8 days in at least some areas of the Twin Cities, according to maps by CoCoRAHS. All of this precipitation has helped continue to alleviate drought conditions and now there are no regions of the District that are experiencing dry conditions.
Essentially this has brought us back to what we would consider a mostly "normal year" with a fairly consistent amount of spring mosquitoes expected. Adult mosquitoes will likely begin to emerge and become noticeable in 1-2 weeks, gradually increasing throughout the rest of May into June. Look to previous years' adult mosquito surveillance graphs to see what a normal curve looks like in the 10-year average.
From then on it's a game of watching the weather to determine where mosquitoes will become the most abundant. The National Weather Service and NOAA are projecting that the state, as a whole, will receive average or below average precipitation during the months of June, July, and August. The past three years we've seen a pattern of fairly snowy winters and wet springs followed by low precipitation and drought throughout the rest of the summer. This year we didn't see much snow in the winter, but spring has gotten us back on track.
Adult mosquito surveillance begins next week!
Starting Monday, May 13th our weekly trap and sweep collection network begins throughout the District. Staff will be setting up various types of traps in parks and neighborhoods that will attract and collect adult mosquitoes. We also have a network of volunteer staff members who will act as human bait and stand in their yards or at a designated location and collect insects using a sweep net method. Samples from traps and sweeps will be sent to the MMCD Entomology Lab to be identified and once all data is processed, we will release maps that indicate the counts by location.
This will be our first look at the current mosquito picture and will help us direct our operations for mosquito control and disease mitigation throughout the summer. Going forward there will be a "Weekly Update" posted with the latest surveillance maps and any other important updates about the mosquito, tick, and black fly season.
MMCD staff setting up a CO2 trap to collect adult mosquitoes. Traps like this will be throughout the District next week.
Helicopters have been out treating ponds and wetlands containing active mosquito larvae.
If you follow MMCD on Twitter or Facebook, you've probably noticed an abundance of posts alerting that helicopters will be out that particular day. More mosquito eggs hatch with each significant amount of spring rainfall and staff have been busy getting to all of the wetter locations to check for larvae. Enough larval activity has been found that helicopters have treated over 62,000 acres already in 2024!
According to the MMCD Entomology lab, most of the species being found at the moment are still the spring snowmelt mosquitoes and we are still waiting for the first big brood of summer floodwater mosquitoes, or Aedes vexans, which are responsible for some of the most nuisance during Minnesota summers and are a vector for dog heartworm.
May is Lyme Disease Awareness month! Be tick safe.
The month of May is Lyme Disease Awareness month and this time of year is when the risk of tick-borne Lyme disease is at its highest. Deer tick nymphs are actively questing and this stage in a tick's life cycle is when they are particularly dangerous because their small size allows them to attach to a host for longer and have a greater chance to transmit the pathogens that lead to disease. Be tick safe by checking yourself, your kids, and your pets any time you are near woods or long grasses and wear tick-repellent clothing. Look for more about Lyme Disease Awareness Month on the MMCD website coming next week.
MMCD in the News
With field staff doing surveillance, helicopters treating wetlands, and reports coming in about mosquito habitat there has been a lot of activity happening at MMCD! Several local news outlets have covered some of the work being done. Check out links to the stories below:
- CCX Media - Rainy Spring has Mosquito Control on alert
- CBS Minnesota - Twin Cities could see "quite a few" mosquitoes this spring thanks to April rain
- Fox 9 - Minnesota braces for mosquito season amidst rainy spring
- KARE 11 - First big batch of mosquitos could start hatching as early as this weekend
