ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – Summer really bites when you are dealing with mosquitoes and with record rains in August, you may be dealing with more bites than usual.
In St. Johns County, Anastasia Island Mosquito Control said populations are on the rise and the agency has seen one confirmed case of West Nile virus in an animal.
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“We always recommend, you know, if you’re outdoors during peak mosquito activity, especially for the West Nile virus factor, they’re active early morning, late evening, then we recommend wearing repellents,” said Dr. Whitney Qualls, Assistant Director of Anastasia Island Mosquito Control. “We put traps out to collect mosquitoes once a week and we have 41 sites across St. Johns County that we monitor, starting in May through November, during our peak mosquito season.”
Record rainfall combined with warm weather will most certainly bring mosquitoes and could keep them around a little longer this year.
According to a recent analysis by The Washington Post, on average, the mosquito season in St. Augustine has been 17 days longer over the last five years than it was the previous 29 years, mostly because of warming spring temperatures.
Dr. Qualls said each year varies.
“Starting in May, we had very low populations, but now we’re easily seeing an increase with hundreds of mosquitoes in our traps,” she said.
On Tuesday, News4JAX got a tour of the new Disease Vector Education Center in St. Johns County where you can learn all things mosquitoes.
Officials there said mosquitoes present a real threat to humans because some of the diseases they carry are deadly.
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Dr. Qualls said St. Johns County has only seen one reported human case of West Nile virus from 2003 until now. In Georgia last week, there were also positive mosquito pool test results for West Nile virus in two neighborhoods in Glynn County.
Mosquito control treats areas in St. Johns County where there is standing water or areas that just don’t drain well so any other threats are taken care of.
“A truck fog application, or, depending on if we have a really big increase and it’s widespread in a certain area, then we can use our aerial capacity to go out and treat,” she said.
Mosquito control asks that you leave the mosquito breeding to the professionals.
“If you have a dog bowl that you leave outside or a plant saucer that’s holding water, that’s a perfect breeding habitat for our container breeder,” Dr. Qualls said.
She said if you think an area needs to be treated, call the Anastasia Island Mosquito Control District at (904) 471-3107.