During the second week in June, Calgary had about half to two-thirds of the precipitation it usually gets for the month of June — with the bulk of that rain falling Monday.
Followed by a warm spell, it would normally leave conditions ripe for a big mosquito hatch. But according to city officials that doesn’t appear to be the case.
The city monitors populations by looking at larvae in samples of standing water, as well as adults in traps.
“In terms of the adults we’ve had our traps out for three weeks and the last two weeks we’ve caught one per week, so that’s quite a low number, if you average it over the last four years — the average is about 40,” said Alex Pepperdine, an integrated pest management technician with the City of Calgary.
What’s more, moisture in areas where technicians would usually expect to find standing water appears to be quickly absorbed.
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“There’s certainly areas that we’ve looked at where we expected there to be more water based on the rain and they are dry,” Pepperdine explained.
The lack of standing water is likely due to the drought conditions which have largely kept mosquito populations at bay over the last couple of years.
While this year’s season will very much depend on how much rain continues to show up in the forecast, experts suggest monitoring your own backyard for potential breeding sites.
“There are some species of mosquito that can breed in very small amounts of water so it’s important to make sure that you don’t have sources of standing water on your property so that like containers or bird baths or anything like that so you want to dump those regularly.”
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