Cuckmere Estuary Partnership

Q: What is the danger of mosquitos taking over?

A:  The existing conditions in the area are actually more likely to support successful breeding populations of mosquitoes than those that would occur in a naturally functioning estuary. At present, mosquitoes can breed in the standing water of the ditches and meanders. In a naturally functioning estuary, the mosquitoes would be far less likely to breed as the water bodies would be regularly flushed and they can’t breed in saline environments.

Of all the species of mosquitoes in this country, only one is known to be capable of carrying the malaria parasite. One species of mosquito did carry malaria in coastal areas of southeast England until 1918. However, this species will not breed in saltmarshes with full strength seawater. In the highly unlikely situation where breeding populations could survive in an intertidal estuary, the adults would first need to bite someone with malaria to pass it on.

People returning from the tropics with malaria feel very ill and almost always get treated quickly before the malaria parasites in their blood have reached the sexual stage which is the stage which can infect mosquitoes. Thus in countries with adequate health services, e.g. Italy, with much hotter climates than ours, malaria transmission has not been re-established since its eradication in the late 1940s, despite the presence of the potential vector mosquitoes and considerable numbers of cases of imported malaria in travellers from malarial countries.

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