Dallas

Little Fish Have a Big Job Fighting Mosquitoes

The number of West Nile virus cases continues to climb in North Texas, and cities are looking for every option to fight mosquitoes, including one unusual idea, known as the "mosquito fish."

In a storage room at the Tarrant County Public Health Department, between cleaning supplies and boxes stacked high, one container is home to a tiny fish that has a big job.

"These little fish are a great natural way of trying to control the mosquito population," said Tarrant County Public Health spokesman Kelly Hanes.

The fish like nothing more than to eat mosquito eggs.

"It's something that doesn't involve chemicals, it doesn't involve much manpower," said Hanes. "We can take these, work with our city partners to place them in areas of concern and the fish just go into a natural habitat and do the work for us."

Right now cities can request the fish from the health department and pick up a supply to drop in any man-made pond. But not everyone knows about, or remembers the little fish.

Northeast Fort Worth has among the highest levels of positive pool tests for West Nile, and the city councilman there, Cary Moon, wants mosquito fish in more widespread use.

"It needs to be more of a standard protocol with our larvicide treatment," said Councilman Moon.

The council this week weighed the idea of aerial spraying, but Moon wants to exhaust all more natural efforts first.

"Obviously public health is the number one concern, and if you can use that environmentally friendly mechanism to treat this nuisance of a mosquito, then it's a lot better than using DEET," said Moon.

And while the health department only gives the fish to cities, citizens can find similar fish at local stores like Mike's Garden Center, while they last.

"There's a bigger demand for them," said general manager Charlie Stephenson.

The store normally gets in 1,000 fish at a time. But when they called on Wednesday, their supplier could only offer 100.

As Stephenson put it, everyone's "kinda skittish about mosquitoes."

And they're looking for any ally they can find, no matter how small.

One important note: if you want to pick up these fish from a store, not the health department, you can only use them in man-made ponds and pools. They're not native to this area so they can't be introduced into natural waterways.

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