The LSU
AgCenter is providing mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)
to the New Orleans area in an effort to suppress mosquito
populations in the many abandoned swimming pools in the city.
Experts
estimate New Orleans has more than 6,000 abandoned pools,
and each has the potential of being a breeding ground for
a multitude of mosquitoes.
Mark Schexnayder,
the LSU AgCenter’s hurricane recovery coordinator and
a Louisiana Sea Grant Extension agent, has been coordinating
this effort between Operation Blessing and the New Orleans
Mosquito and Termite Control Board to ensure that the mosquito
numbers don’t get out of hand.
Schexnayder
said using the mosquitofish was the idea of Steve Sackett,
research entomologist and field superintendent for the New
Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board.
Sackett
said he had used fish before to control mosquitoes in the
city but never to this magnitude.
"Before
Katrina we would use minnow traps to catch a few fish in drainage
ditches to use for this purpose, but with the potential for
West Nile Virus and other disease problems that we could see
from having this many abandoned pools, we had to think bigger,"
Sackett said.
The combination
of resources from the various agencies involved in the project
has provided what was needed to be successful.
"We’ve
gotten off to a good start with the help of Operation Blessing,
which gave us $25,000 to put the fish farm back in operation
at the Orleans Parish Prison," Schexnayder said.
Operation
Blessing is an international relief organization that has
donated a considerable amount of money, manpower and equipment
to the New Orleans recovery effort.
With this
grant in hand, Schexnayder contacted the LSU AgCenter’s
Aquaculture Research Station in Baton Rouge about donating
some mosquitofish, and the result is that Orleans Parish now
has the world’s largest Gambusia fish breeding facility.
"Dr.
[Robert] Romaire and his staff at the Aquaculture Station
have been phenomenal in this effort. They have been draining
their ponds in Baton Rouge and giving us fish to put in the
abandoned swimming pools," he said.
Romaire,
LSU AgCenter professor and director of the Aquaculture Research
Station, said the mosquitofish are a native species found
in just about any water body in Louisiana.
"Many
of our experimental ponds at the Aquaculture Research Station
that are used in catfish research and crawfish research have
large populations of mosquitofish. Although they are not part
of our targeted research program at the station, they do add
the benefit of controlling mosquito populations at the station,"
Romaire said.
He said
in addition to providing fish to stock the swimming pools,
the LSU AgCenter is providing mosquitofish breeding stock
to the New Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board to help
in establishing the mosquitofish breeding facility.
Romaire
said, "We are also providing technical assistance on
rearing/breeding mosquito fish as requested by the New Orleans
Mosquito and Termite Control Board and our AgCenter colleagues
based in New Orleans."
Many other
fish species will consume mosquito larvae and are effective
in controlling mosquito populations, but the mosquitofish
have some noticeable advantages.
One advantage
is that they are tolerant to poor water quality where other
mosquito larvae-consuming fish are not. Another advantage
is that mosquitofish do not lay eggs. They give birth to live
young. Therefore, no special environment is required.
Mosquitofish
produce from 50 to 100 young at intervals of about every six
weeks. The young are born at about one-fourth inch in length
and grow to about 3 inches at maturity.
As soon
as they are born they begin to eat mosquito larvae and are
able to consume about 100 per day.
The mosquitofish
can tolerate a wide range of temperatures and have a life
expectancy of about three years.
For additional
information on the mosquitofish project in New Orleans, contact
Mark Schexnayder at (504) 838-1170 or mschexnayder@agcenter.lsu.edu.
