Buggy summer ahead
Yk experiencing a forest tent caterpillar infestation and increase in mosquito numbers
Robin Grant
Northern News Services
Friday, June 24, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
There will be bugs this summer - at least caterpillars and mosquitoes.
Tent caterpillars crawl around the outside of a cocoon near Rat Lake. Caterpillar numbers tend to flare up in years of warm weather. - Randi Beers/NNSL photo |
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said Yellowknife and other communities in the North are experiencing forest tent caterpillar infestations.
According to Greg Pohl, forest insect and disease identification officer for Natural Resources Canada in Edmonton, there are large infestations in Saskatchewan which means the outbreak is likely to occur in the Northwest Territories as well.
"It's mostly due to the weather and the populations from the previous years that cause them to flare up," he explained.
"The moths that hatch out of these caterpillars lay lots of eggs and most of those eggs don't hatch properly because of the weather or they hatch and a lot them don't make it. But the potential is there for a massive population."
"(The caterpillars) try to time it so that they come out just as tender leaves are popping out, and if they do well on those little leaves, then they can potentially build up to a big population," he said.
The forest tent caterpillar is native to North America and has historically caused extensive defoliation of trembling aspen, oak, ash, maple and white birch.
"The trees are pretty well adapted for (the infestations)," he said.
"This has been going on for thousands of years so the trees are used to this happening really regularly. They can withstand usually two to three, four years of this sort of thing without being killed, because they can put on another flush of leaves later in the year."
According to Natural Resources Canada, widespread outbreaks have occurred in boreal forest every 10 to 12 years and typically last three years or less and up to six years depending on natural factors, such as the weather, caterpillar predator populations and forest structure.
Typically, tent forest caterpillars remain caterpillars for five to eight weeks while they spin cocoons either between leaves or under the eaves of buildings and any little cracks in trees, Pohl said.
Two weeks later they become moths.
"So they are probably just about done feeding now and making cocoons and sometime in the next few weeks you'll see thousands and thousands of brown moths that are a couple of centimetres in wing span," he said.
But the bug population in Yellowknife isn't stopping there.
Former MLA and biologist Bob Bromley said Yellowknifers will be feeling the mosquito numbers this summer because of the standing water leftover as result of the rapid spring melt and more rainfall.
"We're coming out of about a four-year drought now. We finally got out to just about normal winter precipitation levels and then we had a very sudden melt this spring, which allowed the water to accumulate," Bromley said.
"In the past, the springs have been a little more drawn out and windy, so we lost a lot of the water directly to the air ... rather than melting and pooling."
He said there is a lot of standing water in the bush, ditches and low spots in the road.
"Those are all prime breeding habitat for mosquitoes," he said.
