It may well carry life-threatening illnesses. It’s tough to seek out and exhausting to kill. And it’s obsessive about human blood.
The Aedes aegypti is a species of mosquito that folks like Tim Moore, district supervisor of a mosquito management district on the Western Slope of Colorado, actually don’t wish to see.
“Boy, they are locked into humans,” Moore mentioned. “That’s their blood meal.”
This mosquito species is native to tropical and subtropical climates, however as local weather change pushes up temperatures and warps precipitation patterns, the Aedes aegypti—which may unfold Zika, dengue, chikungunya and different doubtlessly lethal viruses—is on the transfer.
It’s popping up everywhere in the Mountain West, the place circumstances have traditionally been far too harsh for it to outlive. Within the final decade, cities in New Mexico and Utah have begun catching Aedes aegypti of their traps yr after yr, and simply this summer time, one was discovered for the primary time in Idaho.
Now, an outdated residential neighborhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, has emerged as one of many newest frontiers for this troublesome mosquito.
Town, with a inhabitants of about 70,000, is the most important in Colorado west of the Continental Divide. In 2019, the native mosquito management district noticed one wayward Aedes aegypti in a entice. It was odd, however the mosquitoes had already been present in Moab, Utah, about 100 miles to the southwest. Moore, the district supervisor, figured they’d caught a hitchhiker and that the cruel Colorado local weather would shortly eradicate the species.
“I concluded it was a one-off, and we don’t have to worry too much about this,” Moore mentioned.
Tim Moore, district supervisor of Grand River Mosquito Management District, explains that managing a brand new invasive species of mosquito in Grand Junction has required the district to extend spending on new mosquito traps and employees.{Photograph}: Isabella Escobedo
