Big snow usually means many bugs
Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 16/01) - As Northerners gaze from their windows on melting drifts of snow, a small shiver of fear creeps up their spines.
"If we have a lot of snow we get a lot of bugs," said Elizabeth Mackenzie, a Dogrib elder in Rae-Edzo.
Soon, it will be whining time again as squadrons of hungry mosquitos, black flies, and horse flies take to the air in search of a meal.
Northerners should not reach for the bug spray just yet, cautioned Gerald Hilchie, entomology technical lab co-ordinator at the University of Alberta.
Big snow does not necessarily mean a big bug population, but it can help.
An early snowfall keeps the ground relatively warm, protects eggs from the Northern winter and helps eggs to hatch in spring, Hilchie said.
But insect populations don't depend entirely on conditions the year before but on conditions in the previous three or four years.
"You need a good source of eggs, and not all eggs hatch at the same time." Different bug species also thrive in different conditions. What's right for mosquitos may not suit horse flies, and they need near perfect conditions to survive.
Hilchie said melt pools are havens for mosquitos. Horse flies thrive in bogs and black flies haunt the banks of rivers and streams.
"The reason there are waves in certain years and not others is because of the fragile conditions needed to thrive," he said.
The only way to be sure of the coming spring and summer's bug population is to sample water pools for insect larva.
"It's hit and miss," said Hilchie.
Even though bugs are an irritant they are an integral part of the North's ecological web.
"They have a colossal ecological impact," said Jamie Bastedo, a Northern writer who has written extensively on the North's ecology.
"They pump astronomical amounts of energy into countless Northern food chains."
If turns out to be the summer of bugs there's little that can be done.
"You can't spray mosquitos away with pesticides," said Hilchie. "They travel in a 30 to 40 mile radius carried by the wind."
For Hilchie, mosquitos and flies are fascinating creatures but that only goes so far.
"They are much misunderstood and maligned but some do deserve it," he said.
