Exploring creeks like these are a daily routine for me by now, and their beauty never ceases to amaze me.  My love for the outdoors makes it necessary for me to have a job like this.  In fact, I believe this internship is the perfect experience I need to become involved in stream restoration in the future.  Knowing all about every organism, including mosquitoes and their larvae, is very important when determining the health of a water system.  I believe my extensive experience in studying mosquitoes this summer will benefit me greatly in my future endeavors.

Only the Culex species of mosquito carries the virus, so we use this chart to determine what species the mosquitoes are that we catch.  When we get a West Nile positive mosquito, we usually react by spraying the neighborhood that trap was in with a chemical called Permanone.  We then set another trap after the spray to make sure that we made a difference not only in the number of mosquitoes, but also that none of the mosquitoes have West Nile.