Worker sprays  standing pool of water in Cottonwood Island Park – photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – It is mosquito  season in Prince George.

“We call them the snowmelt mosquitoes” says Claire Watkins,  Integrated Pest Management Foreman for the City of Prince George.   The actual name of  this type of mosquito is ‘aedes vexans’  “That’s the species of mosquito that comes out in the spring and they’re the ones that like human blood.”

There are 20 species  of mosquitoes in Prince George  says Watkins  and the good news is not all  target humans “Some like birds, some like horses, some like livestock some like moose and deer.  So for most of them we (humans) are not their favourite blood source.”

This year,  the  City is spending $80 thousand dollars on mosquito control.  It’s a big job as the City treats  more than 350 sites in  Prince George  with  larvicide to control mosquitoes.

While the work being done in Cottonwood Island Park  is being done manually,  aerial spraying is also done in swamps northwest of College Heights, northeast of the Hart,  and a heli-spray was done on Fraser Flats  on Monday

The larvicide is sprayed on standing pools of water or swamps  which have first been checked to ensure there are larvae present says Watkins “The larvicide’s only  good in the water for 36 hours” and only sprayed  in areas that are not connected  to fish bearing  waterways.

The spraying program runs from  around the end of April to the end of June “The mosquitoes that come out after that are not as numerous,  not as pesky” says Watkins..