I wish for fish. Not just any fish, but the mosquito-eating fish Gambusia affinis.
My desire for mosquito fish is a puny matter, a way to get rid of mosquito larva in our pond.
Talk with William Hazeleur, district manager of Shasta Mosquito & Vector Control.
He wants mosquito fish more than anyone. Most of the fish he planned to harvest from area ponds died. He’d buy fish, if he could find them. He’s contacted fisheries all over California, with zero luck. He even placed an order with a place in Arkansas, but that fell through and left Hazeleur fishless.
One thing’s certain, Shasta County is suffering a mosquito-fish shortage unlike any Hazeleur’s every seen. What’s more, Hazeleur believes the mosquito-fish shortage is a statewide problem, and maybe beyond.
“I’ve been manager for 38 years and my foreman’s been here for 30 years and we’ve never seen it so bad,” he said.
What’s the big deal about some missing mosquito fish, you might ask? The big deal, said Hazeleur, could mean a huge influx of mosquitoes. When weather warms up, mosquitoes go from larva to adulthood in about a week.
It’s a potentially problematic domino effect that could lead to more mosquitoes than ever, at a time when West Nile Virus is a major concern.
“It’s absolutely not a good thing when we can’t get fish,” he said.
“It’s really terrible. We usually use a lot of fish in drainage ditches and ponds, but we’re not getting anywhere near the numbers of fish we need. It’s frustrating, because I usually like to get my fish early, like April. The poor people answering the phones around here, I’m telling them to tell people it could be as late as July, so we don’t give false hope. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s enough to make you nuts.”
And regarding the reason behind the missing mosquito fish, Hazeleur said the best he could do is venture an unscientific guess.
“I think what happened is that we had that early warm weather, and then a bunch of baby fish were born,” he said. “But then we had that cold weather, and I think that caused a high mortality.”
He said the appeal of mosquito fish is they gobble up the larva before they become blood-sucking, disease-spreading mosquitoes.
Minus the fish, Hazeleur and his staff must resort to more fogging than usual to kill the grown mosquitoes (with a chemical he said is less potent than the store-bought mosquito repellents).
Besides those efforts, he’s asking the public to be especially vigilant about preventing mosquitos. Dump standing water. Make sure windows have tight-fitting screens. Use mosquito repellent when outdoors.
In years past he offered free mosquito fish to the those who lived within the mosquito district. He’s taken that part off his public-service information because he’s already got nearly 200 people on Shasta Mosquito & Vector Control’s fish waiting list.
I’m on the list.
While I wait, I keep restocking my pond with gold fish and guppies (critters eat them). That seems to do the trick, mostly, but not entirely.
In the meantime, perhaps I should research what it takes to create a mosquito-fish breeding pond.
