The Florida Keys agency charged with keeping the island chain\u2019s mosquito swarms at bay might become the nation\u2019s first to use drones to spot remote breeding grounds as part of efforts to eradicate the insect.
\n\u201cIf you try to get across the small islands it\u2019s back country, it\u2019s jungle,\u201d said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, who added the drones wouldn\u2019t replace boots on the ground, but would help turn eradication efforts into \u201csmart bombing.\u201d
\nOn August 26 the head of North Carolina-based Condor Aerial will demonstrate the Maveric drone on a test flight for officials in hopes of selling the $65,000 aircraft to one of the Sunshine State\u2019s most popular tourist destinations.<\/p>\n
The chain of islands begins about an hour south of Miami and stretches nearly 200 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. The southern tip of Key West is located only 90 miles from the shores of Cuba.
\nCondor Aerial CEO Fred Culbertson said the two-pound, two-and-a-half-foot-long drone can fly for 90 minutes at 200 feet. For mosquito control, they will be fitted with thermal cameras, which can show the pools where mosquitoes lay eggs as dark spots on the ground.
\nInspectors will have to take pilot training certification courses and local officials will have to seek Federal Aviation Authority approval to fly the drones.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re not going to be used for surveillance,\u201d Culbertson stressed.
\nCondor Aerial is a division of Prioria Robotics, a north Florida-based manufacturer that in 2010 received a $2.8m contract from Canada to supply reconnaissance drones in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Mosquitoes breed in the stagnant water left after a high tide or a storm. The agency employs 40 inspectors who scour 42 islands spread across 140 square miles. After an event, inspectors have only days before eggs grow into biting, potentially disease-spreading adults.
\nWhen a drone spots a potential breeding ground an inspector would visit the site to test for eggs, before calling in one of the district\u2019s four helicopters to spray a bacteria to kill them.
\n\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking to see is if this technology can actually see shallow water either out in the open or under mangroves,\u201d Doyle said. \u201cAnd how much land can it cover quickly so the inspectors can get out that day.\u201d
\nDoyle said the drones could help him better monitor the Keys with less staff. \u201cAs our budget is getting smaller we\u2019re trying to find ways to cover the same area with fewer people,\u201d he said.
\nKeys officials regularly battle the common Salt Marsh mosquitoes that breed by the millions and can fly up to six miles. Yet their chief concern is the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries dengue, known as breakbone fever for the intense joint pains it causes.
\nIn 2010 the disease infected 63 people, according to a Center for Disease Control report.
\nDengue mosquitoes can lay eggs in small, hidden pools that drones might not be able to spot. The only effective solution, Doyle said, is to visit sites multiple times a month, emptying any containers and spraying chemicals to kill any larvae that might grow.
\n\u201cThey\u2019ve found them growing in a two-liter bottle cap,\u201d he added. As well as considering drones, officials are awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval to release genetically modified, sterile males into the wild to mate with wild females that would produce no offspring. Doyle hopes the plan could collapse the mosquito population.
\nStill, there\u2019s no way to eradicate the insect completely.
\nTourists and seasonal residents are always introducing new species and diseases into the environment.
\n\u201cEvery time somebody brings a potted plant from Home Depot in Miami there are eggs in there,\u201d Doyle said. \u201cThe next time it rains there will be a few more mosquitoes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Florida Keys agency charged with keeping the island chain\u2019s mosquito swarms at bay might become the nation\u2019s first to use drones to spot remote breeding grounds as part of efforts to eradicate the insect.
\n\u201cIf you try to get across the small islands it\u2019s back country, it\u2019s jungle,\u201d said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, who added the drones wouldn\u2019t replace boots on the ground, but would help turn eradication efforts into \u201csmart bombing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}