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Mosquito fish being used to decrease West Nile Virus mosquito population
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BATON ROUGE – Mosquito abatement specialists are using fish to help with mosquito control since there has been a spike in positive West Nile samples.
The Gambusia fish, also known as the mosquito fish, feed on insect larva. Stephen Hahn, mosquito abatement specialists, placed them in the back yard of a vacant home in Baton Rouge.
"They''ll ll just swim around and when they see a mosquito larva, the will just eat it," Hahn said.
East Baton Rouge Mosquito Control raises its own Gambusias at their headquarters. The fish are then placed in private pods and bird baths to help reduce the mosquito production.
This season in East Baton Rouge Parish, three samples came back positive for the West Nile Virus.
"The mosquito is going to shape up to pretty bad I think after this big this rain event we had with tropical storm Cindy all the rain water that we've gotten is certainly going produce what we call flood water mosquito," Randy Vaeth, mosquito abatement specialist, said.
Some of the samples that tested positive for West Nile, came from a mosquito trap at the Roselawn Cemetery in Baton Rouge. Allen Banks, 72, lives about a block away from the cemetery and because of his age, he is concerned about contracting the virus.
"I'm scared of it. If I catch it, old age like this here, I might not get over it," Banks said.
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