CAPE TAKES ON MOSQUITOES

Wayne Moore has been bitten by the bug. But he is fighting back.

Moore is a stormwater and sewer maintenance supervisor for the city of Cape Girardeau Public Works Department.

Among other things, he directs the city's fogging operation that annually wages chemical war on the pesky pests.

The city began spraying Wednesday evening. Moore said the city usually starts the fogging operation in early June.

Last year, the city started spraying in May.

"It kind of depends on the type of year we have. They become more pesky whenever our weather is warm and humid," said Moore.

The area experienced cooler temperatures this spring, he said.

"We try to do our low-lying areas. We concentrate on the creeks, ditches and areas like that where we have heavy foliage.," Moore said.

The city sprays two nights a week, for about four hours each time throughout the summer. The operation begins around 6 p.m.

"We try to do the entire city once a week,' he said.

The spraying is done during evening hours when mosquitoes are more active and winds typically have died down.

The blower on the back of a truck used to dispense the chemical mist is noisy. Moore said the city quits spraying around 10 p.m. to avoid disturbing residents.

Any kind of flooding adds to the mosquito problem, Moore said.

Cape Girardeau didn't experience any serious flooding along the Mississippi River this spring. A flash flood did hit some areas of the city last Friday night.

The bottomland along the Diversion Channel regularly floods, providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

"My goodness, all you need is a southwest breeze blowing up here," said Moore.

During the Mississippi River flood of 1993, countless mosquitoes congregated under the carport of a Cape Girardeau home. "It was almost a black cloud under the carport," he said.

The Asian tiger mosquito is expected to be a major pest in the St. Louis area this summer, health officials have said.

The tiger mosquito came to the United States in the mid-1980s on used tires imported to Texas from Asia, said Dr. Christina Frazier, a biology professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

"They are gorgeous mosquitoes. They are blue-black and they have beautiful white stripes," said Frazier who has studied mosquitoes and their viruses for more than 20 years.

"They are little guys. They are smaller than other mosquitoes," she said.

Unlike other mosquitoes, the Asian tiger mosquito feeds in the day time.

Health officials are concerned about such mosquitoes because they transmit several diseases in Southeast Asia, Frazier said. "The question is, are they going to transmit disease in this country?"

In the laboratory, the mosquitoes have been found to transmit La Crosse encephalitis, which can lead to seizures, she said.

"Usually, it isn't fatal," she said.

In Florida, however, there is evidence that the mosquito might carry a form of encephalitis that can be deadly to children.

Mosquito traps are used to collect mosquitoes for Frazier's studies.

She said the Asian tiger mosquito has shown up in traps in the Cape Girardeau region since 1994.

"We are trapping it, but not in large numbers," said Frazier.

The biology professor said mosquitoes breed in standing water. Everything from blocked rain gutters to discarded hubcaps can provide a breeding ground.