Mosquitoes ~ Discussion Continued...

A few years back I noticed a decline in the Roughskinned Newt population on Thetis.

In past years, the orange bellied newts could be regularly found as road kill by the recycling station and School. This prompted newt crossing signs to be posted. I doubt the absence of road kill mean the signs worked.

Mosquito larvae is a favourite food of the newts which may be a contributing factor to the mosquito bloom.

I am curious as to whether the increased population of resident geese on our ponds may have impacted their population's decline as geese like to feed on newt larvae.

As a side note I have not seen any bats at my place. In past years they served as a regular summer night mosquito patrol squad consuming 1000's of mosquitoes every night.

Perhaps the conservancy group couldresearch the correlation of geese populations and decline of newts, consequently increasing the mosquito population.

Lynda Poirier