March 21, 2005
By Dan Stober
Mercury News

Yes, those are mosquitoes biting your neck, even though the season isn't supposed to begin until next month.

An unusual combination of early warm weather and lots of rain has helped produce swarms of giant-sized marsh mosquitoes -- the most seen in March in years.

``Oh man, they're killing us. They're just incredible,'' lamented George Travino, the owner of the Marina Seafood Grotto in Alviso, just across the street from the salt marshes of the San Francisco Bay.

A swarm of the blood-sucking insects invaded a recent community meeting at an Alviso elementary school. ``You would see people go and slap each other on the head to get rid of the mosquitoes. It was like a Three Stooges meeting,'' Travino said.

``I've been in this town for 20 years and this is the worst outbreak of mosquitoes I've ever seen.''

Santa Clara County mosquito-control officials say they have fielded a flood of complaining phone calls from Gilroy to Palo Alto.

Creeks and wetlands overflowed their banks, producing breeding grounds for a host of marsh mosquitoes that have already produced two or three generations of nasty biters this year.

Never before has the county done so much treatment this early or caught more mosquitoes in traps, according to county mosquito-abatement officials.

The rain predicted for the next several days may only make things worse. ``Three days of rain are going to fill all those little containers people have in their back yards,'' said William Hamersky, a mosquito biologist for Alameda County.

Mosquitoes -- including those that carry the West Nile virus -- can breed anywhere there is standing water, from swimming pools to planting pots to Fido's water bowl.

But if you squash an unusually large specimen on your forehead, it is most likely from a saltwater marsh -- and less likely to transmit West Nile than the backyard variety, experts say.

Hamersky killed a marsh mosquito while riding a horse in the hills above Palo Alto. ``So it flew at least six miles up a creek to come and bite my horse,'' he said.

Santa Clara County workers began spraying breeding spots in February for some types of mosquitoes, but the marsh variety ``came up real fast'' before they could be brought under control, according to Kriss Costa of the county's mosquito-abatement program.

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