Wet, mild weather means more mosquitoes

[TexasStooge]

By DON WALL / WFAA ABC 8

This is normally the start of the breeding season for mosquitoes. There's just one problem: Experts say last year's mosquito season never ended because of the unusually mild winter.

Add in last weekend's flash floods and heavy rain with all the standing water left behind and that's a formula for continuing problems.

"A very small amount of water will breed a lot of mosquitoes," explained Ann Stipes, an insect hunter for the Dallas Environmental and Health Services department.

She was sampling water in an old, abandoned swimming pool. The pool was full of mosquitoes.

But it gets worse.

She reached in and pulled out thousands of mosquito larvae. "They can lay as much as 500 eggs per time," Stipes said.

She said conditions were ripe for a bloom of mosquitoes. "We're looking for the breeding and we're trying to get it stopped," Stipes said. Health officials are using chemical wafers that can prevent larvae from growing into adults.

Right now, the mosquitoes being hatched are mostly winter mosquitos. "And the mosquitoes that will be carrying a disease are here to come," Stipes said.

West Nile virus and St. Louis encephalitis mosquitoes will appear in a few weeks. "People need to check around their homes and make sure no small container is holding water," Stipes said, "because all of that is a potential breeding source."

And mosquitoes aren't the only bugs we're likely to see more of. Floodwaters saturating the ground also bring fire ants to the surface.