Heavy rainfall this year leading to more insects in GTA

Exterminators seeing hike in business while Peel Region reports a 1,600 per cent increase in mosquitoes.

Thestar.com
July 13, 2017
By Alina Bykova

The heavy rainfall this year hasn’t just dampened Toronto residents’ mood this summer, it’s also brought more insects.

Daniel Mackie, who works at GreenLeaf Pest Control, said the company has had 75 per cent more calls for bugs this year.

“Our No. 1 complaint right now is ants,” Mackie said Wednesday, adding that many of his clients have also had problems with mosquitoes, ticks and earwigs.

“There are three variables for successful pests: food, shelter and water,” Mackie said.

The first two factors haven’t changed since last year, but the “excess water has created a perfect breeding ground” for bugs, Mackie said.

Other pest control services across the city contacted by the Star also report an increase in almost every seasonal bug, such as mosquitoes, centipedes and ants.

Data from Peel Region also points to larger insect populations this year.

“Comparing week 27 of the season for 2016 and 2017 we are seeing significantly more activity,” wrote Paul Callanan, director of health protection in Peel.

He said that at this time in 2016, 386 adult mosquitoes had been trapped, compared to 6,800 so far this year, an increase of more than 1,600 per cent.

“We have also had significantly more larval breeding sites identified by our staff,” Callanan wrote. “In 2016 we had a total of approximately 1,400 sites identified, and this year we have already identified approximately 1,300 sites.”

While mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus have been found in Mississauga, no human cases have been reported so far.

Last Thursday, the City of Toronto issued its earliest warning for West Nile since 2012, with rainy conditions one of the reasons blamed.

Despite the early warning, Toronto Public Health said they have not seen an increase in the number of mosquitoes this summer compared to the previous five years.

And even if there were more mosquitoes, Dr. Howard Shapiro, associate medical officer of health, said the type that carries the West Nile virus is actually lower this year than in previous years.

David Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada, said that while this summer is uncharacteristically rainy, leading to larger insect populations, the weather is part of a larger trend.

We will see generally warmer temperatures in the city year round and more intense rainfall in the decades going forward, he said.

Phillips said Toronto’s infrastructure is poorly equipped to deal with the increased rainfall.

The sewage systems here were built “properly at the time,” Phillips said, but aren’t able to accommodate the population growth and increased rain that is occurring more regularly as our climate changes.

Meanwhile, because Toronto’s downtown core is mostly made up of concrete and asphalt, the water will have nowhere to go, causing flooding.

“That rain drop becomes a flood drop,” Phillips said.

That causes water to pool and become stagnant, creating a perfect environment for insects like mosquitoes to breed.

As the city’s climate gets warmer, Phillips said, we could see a rise in tropical vector-borne diseases.