(Click on the image for Mike McGrath's WTOP report)
- The first female mosquitoes of the season are biting now and then laying eggs that will hatch in around 10 days. So if you wait until the end of June to take action, you’ll be getting bitten by the great-granddaughters of the first mosquito that got you.
- Clean your gutters! They are the single biggest unseen breeding source for your local mosquito population.
- BTI is a naturally occurring soil organism with a unique property. Applied to standing water in dunk, briquette or granular form, BTI prevents mosquito eggs from developing into biting adults.
- And, unlike chemical larvicides, BTI does not affect any other life form. Birds can drink BTI-treated water. You dog can — and will — drink it. Frogs and toads can live in it. The only thing that BTI does to water is prevent mosquitoes from growing up in it. How cool is that?
- The Mosquito Control Section [of the Maryland Department of Agriculture] provides a direct service to approximately 2,100 communities [including Tantallon] in 16 Maryland counties. The primary goal of this program is to prevent the occurrence of mosquito-borne disease in humans, pets and livestock. Read their brief on mosquito control here.
- From that brief: "Applications ideally are made when wind velocity is 2 to 10 mph, temperature is 60 to 85 degrees, relative humidity is high and a temperature inversion exists. All applications are made at night, when these conditions usually exist and when most mosquito species are active. Night time application also protects pollinators that are active during the day." Tantallon is scheduled to be sprayed on Mondays.