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8.31.2000 00:00
DEM traps
reveal
mosquito
numbers
are down
 Monday night's spraying apparently helped to reduce the mosquito population, but a DEM official says the number of insects is still not as low as he would like it to be.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Journal Staff Writer
Three days after mosquito spraying in Newport and Middletown, the number of mosquitoes trapped is down in Newport and below the state average in Middletown, the state Department of Environmental Management said yesterday.
Al Gettman, the DEM's mosquito abatement coordinator, said that traps were set in both towns on Tuesday. By noon yesterday, the traps had been taken in and the mosquitoes counted. While numbers were not as low as he would have liked, he said he was confident that the spraying was effective.
"There's no doubt in my mind that a lot of mosquitoes were killed from that spray," Gettman said. "But it was difficult to assess given the variability in location and wind speed."
In Newport, the number of mosquitoes caught was 23, down from 30. "That's in the right direction," Gettman said. In Middletown, which had not trapped mosquitoes before the spraying, the number was 26, which is below the statewide average.
Gettman stressed that it was logistically impossible to get a scientific sample of the mosquito population. The number of mosquitoes found in a single trap depends on the direction of the wind, weather conditions and many other factors, he said.
"Weather has a radical effect on how many mosquitoes are flying around," he said. "The wind affects not only where the mosquitoes will be but has an effect on where the spray goes ... so you can set a trap pre-spray and post-spray and get numbers that are radically different."
The spraying in both towns followed the discovery of West Nile virus in a dead crow found at Cliff Terrace, in Newport. Another crow was found earlier this month in Warwick and more recently in Westerly, which also conducted mosquito spraying on Monday.
West Nile is a virus native to Asia, Africa and the Middle East that first appeared on this continent last year, in an outbreak in New York City. It lives in birds, particularly the American crow, and it can be transmitted from birds to humans by mosquitoes.
The virus is rarely fatal in humans but it can be life-threatening to the elderly and infirm; there is neither a treatment nor a vaccine.
Gettman's office is currently setting traps around North Providence, where a bluejay was recently found infected with Eastern equine encephalitis, another mosquito-borne virus.
Although he says he is certain that the mosquito spraying was effective in Newport and Middletown, he wishes the traps had shown a more dramatic reduction in the number of mosquitoes.
"Oh, wouldn't we like to see that number go down to zero in every one of our traps," he said.
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