West Nile Virus Program

Lancaster County West Nile Virus Program

To get an understanding of what mosquito populations are doing around the county, the Lancaster County West Nile Virus program sets a variety of mosquito traps. The traps are baited with stagnant water or dry ice and human scent lure. While unpleasant smelling if you get close enough (closer than you'd ever need to), they are harmless.  People are often suspicious of small, unattended boxes, particularly when they hear the buzzing of the fans, and may contact the police or other authority if they see our traps. Therefore we wanted to make you aware of what these traps look like at the beginning of the season.
 

Here are the three basic traps:

Gravid Trap:

This trap attracts mosquitoes that are looking to lay eggs in stagnant water. There is a fan and collection chamber in the tool box portion of the trap to suck the mosquitoes up and keep them for identification and testing.

Light Trap:

This is a bit of a misnomer. These traps are baited with C02 to mimic human breath and have no light associated with them. They did before, but it was found that light attracted a myriad of non-mosquito insects.

BG Sentinel:

This trap is similar to the light trap but also contains a human scent lure. It will often have a cooler of dry ice hanging above it, as pictured in the light trap.

These traps are marked with the following documentation:

Please click here for more information on PA's West Nile Virus Control Program.