Skeeter fogging set for Thursday

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This article was published 22/07/2020 (2046 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg will begin mosquito fogging in residential areas Thursday night, as it urges homeowners to help battle the critters in their own yards.

The city will begin treating residential zones with DeltaGard at 9:30 p.m., if weather permits.

Ken Nawolsky, the city’s superintendent of insect control, said trap counts are higher than what was expected following recent dry weather conditions, which indicates many bugs were bred in standing water in backyards. Winnipeggers are asked to dump, drain or cover any areas standing water could exist.

“If we had three or four inches of rain, you would see these kind of mosquitoes. The numbers that we’re seeing in the traps now don’t correlate to what the weather conditions are,” said Nawolsky.

“Mosquitoes can lay their eggs in (eavestroughs) and then, as a result, you can get hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes in your neighbourhood.”

He urged residents to check their yards at least once a week to cut off that bug-breeding option.

The citywide average trap count reached 59 on Wednesday, while the “adulticiding factor analysis (AFA)” moved from medium to high. One city trap count in the southeast had 170 skeeters while one in the northwest had 160 mosquitoes.

In order to fog, city policy and provincial rules dictate the AFA must be high, the citywide average trap count must have a minimum of 25 female mosquitoes for two consecutive nights, and one or more city quadrants must report at least 100 female adult mosquitoes.

The city set its fogging date as soon as those conditions were met, Nawolsky said, noting the pest population may also have risen due to migration from other communities, noting one Headingley trap count reached 2,000 mosquitoes last week.

The news comes after a few city councillors publicly lobbied for mosquito fogging.

Coun. Kevin Klein (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) said he pushed for treatment after receiving many complaints from his constituents.

“This is a daily occurrence, phone calls, emails, people really, really upset that we’re not fogging,” said Klein. “(Some said) I can’t enjoy my backyard, what do I pay taxes for?”

Nawolsky said the insect control branch is legally bound by its fogging criteria.

“I’m always open to (hearing) if council has some different options… if they feel that it needs some tweaking. But, generally, (the policy) does seem to work overall,” he said.

This will be the first citywide fogging operation in three years. It’s expected to begin in the northwest part of the city.

Joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga

wfppdf:https://www.gov.mb.ca/health/publichealth/factsheets/deltagard.pdf:wfppdf