CALGARY — Afraid to go outside because you feel you may get eaten alive?Well, fear only a moderate amount, since Calgary is expecting an average number of ferocious, blood-thirsty critters, also called mosquitoes.According to Alex Coker, an Integrated Pest Management Technician for the City of Calgary, the mosquito population tends to reach its peak during mid-July.Though they cannot fully predict the amount of mosquitoes the city will receive with certainty, Coker says it will be similar to the average seen during most summers.."What we can say for right now is that we can't know for sure, but we're not expecting there to be like a ton more mosquitoes in July than we see on average.""I think we're still going to hit that kind of average trend of getting the most mosquitoes as we move into July and things start to warm up."Further, Coker said they would be unable to predict any sort of record-breaking year for mosquito numbers due to the forecasted rain this week."We could get a whole bunch of rain this week, and then that's going to totally throw off any prediction I can give you right now," explained Coker.."It really just depends on how much rain we get throughout the rest of the season.""I guess if things stay cool, that could be a bit delayed, but we are expecting that trend to occur with the kind of rain in June and then more adults in July."This is because mosquitoes don't just need rain to grow, they also need proceeding warm temperatures.This is when more adult mosquitoes become active, explaining why the population tends to peak mid-July.The temperature during the daytime is not the only factor that matters..If nighttime temperature are cooler, "we're also catching less mosquitoes, but people are also seeing less mosquitoes when they're out at those dawn and dusk periods," Coker said.However, the mosquitoes the city usually traps at parks like the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary have been at very low levels."Our mosquito numbers have actually been pretty low compared to average," explained Coker. "I'd say when we look at the number of mosquitoes per trap, it's probably like half to a third of what we usually get this time of year, some of that is just, if we had those cooler overnight temperatures, or if it's windier, then we're not going to get a lot of mosquitoes captured in our traps."Something Albertans can also look forward to — a new kind of invasive species of mosquito, explained John Soghigian, Assistant Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary, who researches mosquitoes here in Calgary, and around the world..The species is relatively new to Alberta, called Northern House Mosquito, being first found in Calgary in 2022 and in 2018 in Edmonton.It is primarily found in Eastern Canada, and is a main carrier of the West Nile virus, which on average does not produce symptoms in most people, though there "are a small number of people that, after being infected by West Nile, end up with flu-like symptoms.""There's an even smaller percentage of people that end up with brain swelling and encephalitis that can be quite detrimental.""We don't know if that mosquito is changing West Nile dynamics in Calgary yet, but that is one thing my lab is researching," stated Soghigian.Soghigian's research team is now hoping Calgarians will help out their work by catching mosquitoes and handing them over to them..Called the Skeeter Seekers Project, "we're asking Calgarians to help us find mosquitoes in their parks and elsewhere.""We have a number of stations at four different parks in the city where Calgarians can pick up these little sampling kits.""We just ask you to smash any mosquito that lands on you, and you can put it in this tube, and there's a little piece of paper where you can fill out information about where it was captured, because people sometimes take these kits with them, and that's great.""Then we ask you just to drop it off at the same place you picked up the little tube, and there'll be a collection box there that it's really easy to recognize, just a big styrofoam container, and these mosquitoes then get brought back to my lab, where we identify what the species is," stated Soghigian..The four park locations are the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, Ralph Klein Park, Bowness Park, and Prairie Winds Park.
