Trap Placement

The CMMCP Surveillance Team places traps for mosquito collections in sites that are the natural habitat for the species sought, i.e. permanent aquatic habitats, etc. In the past, we have randomly selected such sites within a town to discover which will consistently produce the largest collections of mosquito adults. From the data collected a selection of permanent trap sites have been chosen in each member city & town. The permanent trap sites will allow for the creation of a data baseline that will allow temporal and spatial analysis of changes in mosquito population sizes and densities. Additional traps will be placed at random and/or specific locations within a given area.

The locations will be chosen by the following criteria:

  • Preferred habitat of the mosquito species of interest;
  • WNV activity as indicated by surveillance data in the current or previous year;
  • Requests from state or municipal public health and/or other government officials; and
  • Test the validity of various hypotheses about arboviral transmission.

These traps are mobile and easily transported to areas of suspected and confirmed WNV activity. Weekly reports of the surveillance program are complied and given to the Executive Director and posted on the CMMCP website.