Why Calgarians are being asked to collect mosquitoes

The weather is getting warmer in Calgary and as residents head out to parks more and more they are being asked to collect any mosquitoes they encounter.

It’s been a slow, but normal start to mosquito season and as the number of sightings increase over the next coming weeks, the city is partnering with the University of Calgary to see what species of the insect live here.

“We’ve had some cool weeks over the last couple of weeks,” says Alex Coker, Integrated Pest Management Technician with the City of Calgary. “We do start to see mosquito numbers start to rise when we go from the beginning of June to July.”

Citizen collections, as they are being dubbed, are happening at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary and Ralph Klein Park where people can get collection kits.

“We like to know what mosquitoes feed on because it can inform our models of disease transmission,” says John Soghigian, assistant professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary. “This idea actually came from a project in Newfoundland where scientists used it pretty effectively as a way to augment their own surveillance.

“They did find some species of mosquitos in this collection method that they couldn’t find with their normal traps.”

Essentially what residents would do is open up the kit, take a collection vial and head out to the park. Once they encounter a mosquito they would use one of the vials to scoop it up.

The mosquito that is collected could either be dead or alive.

According to the city, there are about 35 to 40 different mosquito species in Calgary, with one of the latest being the Culex pipiens mosquito detected by researchers in 2022.

“We do have native mosquitoes that transmit West Nile, but this mosquito does not compete with them in any way,” says Soghigian. “We are a little bit concerned about an additive effect, but we don’t know if that’s occurring yet and it’s an areas of active study in my research lab.”

Even though researchers are asking Calgarians to collect mosquitoes, they are also providing the reminder that they have their benefits.

“They actually act as pollinators in the environment, and they are a food source for a lot of things, especially aquatic organisms like dragonfly or fish,” says Coker.