Mosquitoes worse than normal this year? The problem may

Those struggling with mosquitoes are advised to look for standing water nearby.

“Quadra-Maplewood, We’ve got a mosquito problem,” says the poster stuck to a pole at the corner of Cook and Quadra streets. The poster advises people to empty unused containers and flowerpot saucers, change out birdbaths and children’s pools, and drain ponds and pools that aren’t in use so mosquitoes can’t breed in their yards. Many Saanich residents have noticed mosquitoes seem particularly bad this year.

A man walking his dogs on the trails at Playfair Park said this year has been “one of the worst” he’s noticed for mosquitoes since moving to Victoria in 1971. “Mosquitoes are taking over,” he said. “I don’t know how we’re going to fix this problem.”

The dog walker said he’s been keeping his windows closed and has been avoiding walking his dogs at dawn and dusk. Cara Gibson, executive director of the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary, said that she hasn’t seen more mosquitoes than normal, suggesting that those struggling might have standing water nearby. She said mosquitoes can fly nearly five kilometres from where their eggs were laid, so it can be hard to pinpoint the

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source of the problem. She noted that, even though some might think that the wetlands surrounding Swan Lake support mosquito populations, they actually have the opposite effect. “The natural predators of mosquitoes, such as dragonflies, damselflies, bats and insectivorous birds, like swallows, make their homes in wetlands.” Joel Gibson, Royal B.C. Museum curator of entomology — or insects — said there are no mosquito-counting measures in place on Vancouver Island, so it’s hard to say if one year is worse than the next. Last summer, researchers with the University of British Columbia and the B.C. Centre for Disease Control teamed up with Vancouver Coastal Health to trap, count and test mosquitoes in the Sea to Sky region. This summer, the work is continuing on the North Shore. The goal is to determine what mosquito species are circulating and what viruses they might be carrying, the...

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