City adds drones as fight against mosquitoes begins

Skeeters beware: Winnipeg’s insect control teams have begun spraying for the season.

Proactive larviciding, which targets mosquito larvae in water before they become adults, kicked off across the city Tuesday morning. Four helicopters and city crews on the ground will be out daily until mid-September, but drones will also be scheduled to distribute larvicide for the first time, as part of a pilot project that was delayed last summer due to dry weather and low mosquito counts.

“We’re looking at the drones to sort of fill in some of the in-between of what (helicopters) can do and what what the ground crews can do,” David Wade, the City of Winnipeg’s superintendent of insect control, said Tuesday.

Insect control saw fewer mosquitoes than normal last year, in part because of what Wade called a “co-operative rain pattern,” but it’s hard to say if this year will be the same.

“There’s not a lot of standing water right now, so it’s a good starting point, but a lot can change between now and through the summer,” he said.

The prominent pest in Winnipeg last summer seemed to be wasps, and while the city doesn’t have a wasp control program, people can report nests on public property and insect control will remove them.

Control programs for tree pest caterpillars, emerald ash borers and elm bark beetles will come later in the summer.

Larviciding efforts account for over 90 per cent of the insect control branch’s annual budget.

Fogging for adult mosquitoes may happen if adult skeeter levels become unmanageable through larvicide alone. In that case, the city would use DeltaGard, an insecticide is no longer available for sale in Canada.

The city has around two to four years’ worth of supply stored, but a city report from April suggests there are no viable alternatives to DeltaGard and a long-term plan must be worked out or fogging may be phased out completely.

“An increase in the larviciding budget could be considered to offset the loss of adulticiding as a control option,” the report, which was brought to the city’s standing policy committee on community services earlier this month, reads.

“Additional resources would be required, focusing on long-term source reduction and rapid response capacity improvements, to improve existing levels of service.”

Residents are encouraged to remove standing water sources from their yards. Those who do not wish to have the insecticide applied on their property can apply for a buffer zone online, in writing to the insect control branch, in-person or by fax.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca