Winnipeg residents can expect more mosquitoes as weather warms up

Winnipeg showers are expected to bring more mosquitos, a problem the city says it's working to control.

The City of Winnipeg says mosquitotrap counts were up over the weekend. On Saturday the average trap count was 25, and sevenon Monday.

"After that rainfall that we had at the end of May, we did see a big hatch of mosquito larva," said David Wade, the city's superintendent of insect control.

"Those larva have made it to the adult stage now. They have emerged as adults and we see those collected in the light traps."

Wade says the city is monitoring the numbers each dayand notes that the wide fluctuation between the number gatheredover the weekend and Monday is due to theweather affecting the traps, not a decrease in mosquito population.

"We're not getting necessarily an accurate picture of what the true abundance is out there right now," he said.

Wade explained that the trap count refers to the average number of adult female mosquitoes captured in a light trap for the day.

According to the city's Insect Control website the trap count number is "only one (1) of the factors considered in determining the Adulticiding Factor Analysis (AFA) Level."

When the AFA is "high" then the city may consider a fogging program. That includes having a trap count of at least twenty-five for at least two consecutive days.

Wade, who is also an entomologist, says as the weathergets hotter, the time for "mosquitoes to go from egg to adult" will shorten. Where it took two weeks in May because of rainfall, he says it could fall to as low as four tosevendays for the insect to grow from egg to adult, "if we're getting the heat that they predict this weekend."

So far, Winnipeggers are not letting mosquitoes keep them indoors.

Troy Giesbrecht was walking with his children Iris and Benson in Kildonan Park Monday night, an area with a higher mosquito trap count. He said with the winter that just passed, they won't allow mosquitoes to keep them inside.

"We gottaget outside,"Giesbrechtsaid.

"It's supposed to rain in the next few days so we gotta find time. We just put mosquito spray on and hope for the best."