Week 4 - Sabrina Nogula

Last week, Rebecca and I wrapped up our fourth week of mosquito trapping for West Nile Virus surveillance here in Jefferson County, CO. We’ve expanded our trapping to six sites, with Kestrel Pond newly added to the mix, and it definitely made an impression. That site brought in the most mosquitoes we've seen so far, with 875 total across different species. Out of those, 530 were Culex, so it’s safe to say the ID process took quite a while!

Most of our sites had higher mosquito activity than usual last week, and it coincided with Jefferson County confirming its first human case of West Nile Virus for the season, definitely a reminder of the importance of this work.

We’re also getting ready to begin uploading our surveillance data into VectorSurv, which will help contribute to broader regional monitoring efforts. Looking forward to diving into that side of the project.

And of course, not every trap was full of mosquitoes, one was almost entirely moths (photo below). A good reminder that fieldwork always comes with a few surprises.