HELENA - With the recent rain storms the Helena area has been receiving, there’s a potential for more mosquitoes than there’s been in the past few years.
In some cases, the storms have created standing pools of water, prime habitat for mosquito larvae.
John Semple — who is a contractor hired to exterminate mosquitoes and larvae within Lewis & Clark County — says that he’s surveying locations twice as often due to the amount of standing water.
“We’re still going to have some mosquitoes when it finally warms up but hopefully we’re at a point where we’ve been checking for them long enough that we can be ahead of them when they, when the temperatures do warm up,” says Semple.
Thankfully, Semple says the cool temperatures help slow down the growth of the larvae, giving him more time to stop these larvae before becoming full-fledged mosquitos. Additionally, Semple predicts that as long as the rain ends soon, mosquitoes won’t be too out of control.
But there are plenty of areas that Semple isn’t able to get to which could potentially create a scenario in which there is a noticeable difference between this year’s mosquito population and the past three years which Semple says have been notably dry.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says the best way to control mosquitoes is to eliminate standing water where they lay eggs. Once a week you should empty and scrub, turn over, cover, or throw out any items that hold water like tires, buckets, planters, toys, pools, and birdbaths.
Additionally, tightly cover water storage containers like rain barrels and buckets and also fill any holes in your yard to prevent them from filling with water.
