Truck Trap Surveillance
The truck-trap program is run every night starting May 1st and continues through October 31st. It provides information on flight activity of male and female mosquitoes at 54 locations around the county using a non-selective trap. A truck-trap is a large screened funnel attached to the top of a pickup truck. Each route is three miles long and mosquitoes are trapped in a net attached to the end of the screen funnel as the truck drives its route. Rainfall data is also collected at the beginning and end of each route providing information for the larviciding program on possible new larval breeding. The insect collections from the truck-traps are taken to the District’s laboratory where the mosquitoes are identified to species and sex and then counted. This information along with weather data collected from each route is tabulated and used to determine where larviciding and adult control may be necessary.
