By Sheena Roszell

Too soon to say if more mosquitoes will be buzzing around GP this year

May 3, 2018 | 5:30 AM

It’s hard to say at this time if we will have more mosquitoes in the area this year or not.

Amy Needham, Integrated Pest Management Technician with the City says mosquito development is based on water. Generally, if there is more water, then more eggs hatch, but a lot of other factors come in to play.

There could also be more prey, like birds eating the insects.

“There is more water around this year, but whether that is going to translate into more mosquitos, it’s kind of early to tell,” she said.  “If everything dries up now and we don’t see another drop of rain until August, then it makes a big difference.”

Needham says with the current snowmelt, there’s a chance that the runoff water will fill up water bodies and it will reach eggs that were laid years ago.

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She says we may get a higher hatch than normal, but at the same time mosquito larvae do not like running water, they like standing water. 

“At this point, I don’t want to say one way or the other if we are going to have a bad mosquito year because if they end up hatching into a bunch of turbulent water, that’s really dirty, they’ll just end up drowning anyway.”

For the mosquitos that do survive, Needham says they use a biological product that only affects mosquito larvae.  It’s applied throughout the city, as well as annexed areas and 3 to 5 km beyond in bodies of stagnant water where mosquito counts are high. The product is very innocuous and is gone within 24 hours.