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It’s shaping up to be a bad year to be a blood-sucking bug.

As Edmonton ramps up its mosquito control program, there’s growing evidence this summer’s blood-sucking swarms could be smaller than in previous years.

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Despite the wet April weather, mosquito populations in Edmonton are so far being kept in check by cooler temperatures, said city biological services technician Mike Jenkins.

“We certainly have a lot of moisture on the ground, so that’s provided a lot of habitat that’s suitable for mosquito development,” Jenkins said. “But the good news is it’s been so cool throughout all of April that development of the mosquitoes has been tremendously delayed.”

The weather station at Edmonton International Airport received 56.9 mm of precipitation in April, nearly double the 30-year average. But Edmonton averaged just over 2 C in April, several degrees colder than usual.

That’s welcome news for a city that was dubbed Canada’s mosquito capital in 2011 after spring rainstorms created ideal mosquito breeding grounds and swarms so bad the Edmonton Eskimos were forced to practice indoors.