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Free Press files<\/p>\n
The City of Winnipeg began spraying for mosquitoes last weekend.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been so long since the mosquito situation was a problem, in fact, that many of us had forgotten where we live \u2014 in the usually-soggy bottom of a glacial lake bed, where those tiny, terrorizing insects tend to flourish \u2014 and started to think a mosquito-free summer is a normal state of affairs.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
After a hiatus that spanned almost half a decade but felt delightfully much longer, the mosquitoes have returned in full force, laying in wait in the damp grasses and rain-soaked greenery until dusk\u2019s arrival before launching their full-swarm assault on anyone brave enough to plan an outdoor evening activity.<\/p>\n
After the average count in traps situated around the city passed the triggering threshold of 25 females for two consecutive nights, with at least two quadrants of the city reporting at least 100 adult female mosquitoes, the adult nuisance mosquito control program was set in motion last Saturday (the average trap count citywide last Friday was 84). Weather permitting, the initiative will target 14 \u201cinsect management areas\u201d identified by the Insect Control Branch.<\/p>\n
Spraying\/fogging with DeltaGard, an insecticide approved by Health Canada, takes place between 9:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., provided winds aren\u2019t too strong and temperatures don\u2019t dip below 13C. Residents who don\u2019t want to be exposed to the chemical can apply for a 90-metre buffer zone around their property.<\/p>\n
How effective the suppression effort will be against this over-soaked season\u2019s bumper crop of mosquitoes remains to be seen, but what is absolutely certain is that the summer of 2026 will be more in line with southern Manitoba\u2019s more historically familiar mosquito infestations than with the relatively jab-free jollity of the past few years.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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It needs to be said, of course, that mosquitoes can be more than an itch-inducing nuisance. Some varieties carry and transmit dangerous pathogens such as West Nile virus, which can unleash an unsavory menu of symptoms ranging from fever and muscle aches to skin rash, nausea and, in rare cases, swelling of the brain and paralysis.<\/p>\n
Not getting bitten by mosquitoes is always the best plan, but as life has returned to buzzing summertime normal hereabouts, Manitobans will inevitably find themselves sharing outdoor spaces with those most-unwelcome winged intruders.<\/p>\n
We will, as ever, be undeterred. Winnipeggers spend their too-long winters dreaming of evenings on restaurant patios and backyard decks and weekends in cottage-country repose to let a few \u2014 OK, a lot more than a few \u2014 bloodsucking neck-gnawers ruin their summertime fun.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll don the coolest of our long-sleeved garments, apply liberal coatings of DEET and employ whatever mosquito-repelling gadgetry works best for us, and we will spend our summer outdoors, because we\u2019re Winnipeggers and that\u2019s how we roll from May long to Labour Day and as far beyond as the lingering warm weather allows.<\/p>\n
The mosquito vacation was nice, but we knew they\u2019d be back. And we will carry on, swatting, spraying, scratching and smiling through a more normal Manitoba summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was nice while it lasted, wasn\u2019t it? And it certainly seemed to last a long, lovely time.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-788195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}