More mosquitos in Saskatoon compared to the 10-year average

The cooler and damper weather has brought back a familiar foe in full force.

Saskatoon is averaging more mosquitoes than it has in the past 10 years.

Entomologist Sydney Worthy, joined the CKOM Morning Show to discuss the rise in mosquitoes.

“We just started our city monitoring last week,” said Worthy. “So far the numbers show that we are a little higher than we’ve been the last few years.”

According to the city’s count Saskatoon is averaging 1.39 mosquitoes compared to last year’s 0.13 average and the 10-year average of 0.17.

Silverspring has seen the most mosquitoes with an average of five being trapped, whereas Lawson Heights has seen the least amount with zero.

Worthy said the increase has a lot to do with the cooler weather.

“Our average temperature for this month so far has been about 16.5 degrees Celsius,” said Worthy. “Last year we were actually sitting at about 23 for the average.”

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The city has traps up in the same areas of town year after year. This allows for them to better monitor mosquito counts.

“We use a trap called a New Jersey light trap. It uses light and heat as an attractant to mosquitoes,” explained Worthy. “They get attracted to the light, they get sucked up in a fan, and then we collect them the next day.”

The city also doesn’t spray for mosquitoes, instead, it uses something else.

“We use a larvicide formula,” said Worthy. “This just means it targets the larval stages of a mosquito, and it’s in a granular formula.”

This formula gets sprayed onto standing bodies of water just outside the city.