Recent rainfall in Portage la Prairie is fueling an increase in local mosquito populations, though numbers remain significantly below levels requiring fogging, according to City Public Works Superintendent Paul Ziesmann.
The city has intensified daily monitoring of mosquito traps.
Rainfall spurs mosquito activity
Ziesmann confirmed the link between the recent wet weather and rising mosquito counts detected in the city's surveillance network.
"There's been an increase in precipitation in the last week or two," Ziesmann stated.
"Right now we have seen a slight increase in our mosquito counts."
He anticipates this trend may continue in the near term.
"We could expect to see a slight uptick in the next week or two due to the moisture that we received in the last week."
Daily monitoring and fogging threshold
Approximately two weeks ago, the City of Portage la Prairie began checking its four strategically placed mosquito traps every weekday, specifically targeting female mosquitoes.
"We're now checking our traps every single day for female mosquitoes," Ziesmann explained.
The established trigger point for initiating adult mosquito control measures like fogging is clear and requires sustained high counts.
"We need those four traps to have fifty female mosquitoes in them for three consecutive days."
Current counts are well below this threshold. "We're about 50% of what the threshold is at this point," Ziesmann noted, adding that populations have been "extremely low historically."
Larviciding remains primary defense
While closely monitoring adult populations, the city emphasizes preventing mosquitoes from reaching adulthood through its ongoing larviciding program.
Ziesmann highlighted the "rigorous larviciding program" targeting known breeding sites in standing water.
"We actually do monitor those kind of standing water areas of historic means with larviciding," he said. "So that actually biologically takes care of a lot of that mosquito breeding in those sites. That's been taking place since May."
This proactive approach targets mosquitoes at the larval stage before they emerge.
Based on current data and historical trends, Ziesmann considers the need for fogging unlikely in the immediate future.
"At this point, it probably looks pretty unlikely unless we see our numbers increase substantially." The city continues its daily trap monitoring and larviciding efforts to manage populations.