Non-human creatures - Battling the tiger mosquito involves employing catchers and traps.
Irritating mosquitoes are an annoyance, but the Asian tiger mosquito is particularly disliked - and it could be harmful. This foreign mosquito, arriving in Europe through global trade, can cause dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. The Institute for Hygiene and the Environment reports that the Asian tiger mosquito is now present in parts of Germany, including Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Berlin. It has yet to be detected in Hamburg - or so it has not been reported.
But the Hamburg institute is cautious and is running a surveillance project with the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine at the port. The objective is to identify the introduction of the tiger mosquito promptly and take defensive measures. For example, "mosquito traps" have been placed in the port of Hamburg that resemble small laundry baskets with a screen over them. The mosquitoes are drawn to these traps by scent and sucked in by a fan. The specimens are then examined to determine whether it's a common mosquito or an invasive species. There are also traps in the cargo holds of ships, some of which have caught exotic insects.
Simultaneously, a national "joint effort" campaign is being run, and Hamburg's social services recently announced on Facebook under the title "Mosquito hunters needed!". "Catch mosquitoes and send them to the mosquito atlas project," the post stated. The social service office also emphasized that the Asian tiger mosquito had not yet been discovered in Hamburg. However, detecting its presence early is critical to combating its spread.
Mosquito collectors can send their catches to the "mosquito atlas project" managed by the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Land Research (ZALF) and the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) in Greifswald. Here's how to participate: Catch the mosquito delicately, preferably freeze it overnight, and send it to ZALF in a matchbox or similar container. By the weekend, around 200,000 mosquitoes had already been tracked, with thousands of collectors taking part. Hunters can then find their name on an interactive map.
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Source: www.stern.de
