Even though the temperature is cooler, we’ve still got mosquitoes

Phil Goodman, Florida Keys Mosquito Control District 2 Commissioner and Board Chair, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on with the mosquitoes.

Can winter help get rid of some mosquitoes?

Goodman said, “When it gets below freezing, really below 50 degrees, you do kill some mosquitoes, but that’s not the case here. This cold weather really retards the natural production of the mosquitoes in the water, but they’re still there. It slows down their life cycle for a few days. We’ve been looking since this the rain that we had recently, we’ve seen pockets of mosquitoes, all up and down the Keys, particularly in the Lower Keys and our inspectors were out this past weekend, and we had helicopters flying, actually, Sunday. I think we’ve really gotten ahead now of all the mosquitoes from this past rain, but our inspectors are out again today. We’re looking here again, particularly the Lower Keys, the Big Pine area, Geiger Key, we see some pockets there that we’re working on. But overall, the mosquitoes are pretty much under control right now. We are working hard to right now, to try to do our annual scheduled maintenance during this time. We have a lot of scheduled maintenance on all of our assets that we’re working on, and that has started, and we’ll be able to finish that. We’re also right now doing a lot of work in preparing for this upcoming season, which we think will be a big mosquito season for us. We’ve got a lot of plans underway.”

Why would this be a big mosquito season?

Goodman said, “Every season is different, but one thing for sure, every season, we have a lot of mosquitoes, and the last several years, the increase in mosquito borne disease worldwide and in Florida has really impacted a lot of what we do, and we expect mosquito borne disease to be a real factor this year in Florida and in the world. Last year was the worst the world has ever seen for mosquito borne diseases in a long time and also in Florida, we had five mosquito borne diseases that were locally transmitting in Florida last year, and in South Florida, it was Dengue fever. That’s continued this year. For the last three or four weeks, we’ve had over 100 cases of travel related Dengue fever continuing to come into Florida this year, and as well as local transmission, and the majority of that is in Miami. We’re right beside Miami, and we’ve really been able to keep Dengue fever out of the Florida Keys. We will work hard at it, because it is certainly here. With all the numbers that we see, the numbers actually are five times bigger, because only about 20% of the actual cases get reported, because a lot of them are first time cases, and maybe they don’t have very significant symptoms, and people just don’t go to the doctor or the health department, so only about 20% get reported. So the numbers that we talk about it’s actually a lot, a lot higher, and we expect that to continue. So what we’re doing, , right now, we’re getting ready for a pilot project for Wolbachia this year, and we’ve been working now for over 10 years on these sterile insect techniques to get them introduced. We had to go through a lot of EPA registration and trials and one of the Wolbachia project was approved last year. We actually did a little bit of benchmarking with that technology last year to be ready. So this year, we worked with the technology company that supports this, and we’ll be starting in April or May, releasing Wolbachia sterile insects in the Florida Keys. Right now, we’re doing a lot of trapping from Key Largo to Key West Ocean Reef. We’re not leaving out any area. We’re looking to see where the main hot spots are. We know where they have been. We want to confirm that they’re there this year, and that’s where we’ll focus these trials. Really the pilot project this year, it’s past the trial stage. We’ve gone through the trial stage for a number of years, and now it’s time to start working to see if this is something that we can integrate into our regular system.”

In 2024 in Florida it was the worst year in decades for mosquito borne diseases.

Goodman said, “Right now, we’re in the middle, I think, of a technology boom for mosquito control. Regularly we get reports from leading universities and medical research institutes of new technology that they’re developing, and it’s really all what they call bio pesticides. These are really mosquitoes killing mosquitoes without the use of pesticides. Right now there’s three technologies that we’re actually looking at. Some of these, these new technologies, they’re years away from being something that we can use. But we do have three technologies right now that really look interesting to us, and they’re all classified this sterile insect technique, like the Wolbachia that we’re looking to use this year. What these all do is we release more or less sterile male insects who mate with the wild female and there’s virtually no offsprings. So when you continue to do this and releasing these mosquitoes, the population just continues to drop, and usually within three or four months, you have really almost eliminated, or maybe 90% plus eliminated the Aedes aegypti in that target area. So that’s the results that we’ve seen. That’s the results that they have seen in all the tests. The EPA has determined that this is a safe and effective means of mosquito control. So we’re looking forward to use it. We’re hoping that next year, or later this year, the Oxitec project that we’ve been looking at will be approved, so that we can look at that next year. I think there’s room for several technologies like this to be used, because each one’s different, and each one has its pluses and minuses, and so we’ll be working hard to see what we can integrate into our current system to continue to control more and more of these Aedes aegypti to keep the people here in the Florida Keys not only comfortable but safe.”

How are the Oxitec and Wolbachia projects different?

Goodman said, “The end result is the same. You want to eliminate the Aedes aegypti mosquito by releasing sterile males and to mate with the wild females and there’s no offspring, but there’s really quite a lot of difference between the two technologies. The sterility is imparted with Wolbachia by the use of bacteria. It’s a natural occurring bacteria that’s found in over half of the insects in the world, but not in the Aedes aegypti mosquito. When the Aedes aegypti mosquito has the Wolbachia bacteria in it, the males are actually sterile. So you release, actually adult mosquitoes that that we bring in, we have to import them or bring them in from they’re produced right now in Kentucky, so we’ll have to be shipping them in several times a week to release thousands of them. The Oxitec uses genetic engineering to impart the sterility, and we only have to use eggs so that we will be bringing in eggs there and rather than someone raising the eggs to mature adults and then shipping them to us and release, we just use the eggs and let nature take its course and produce the mosquito right there in the field. So each one has its advantages and we’re hoping that using these technologies will allow us to really reduce the number of Aedes aegypti, because with the other mosquitoes that we control, the chemicals that we use, the pesticides work very well, but on the Aedes aegypti, they are becoming resistant to some of the better pesticides that we use. So we know that long term, we’re not going to be able to chemically spray our way out to eliminate these mosquitoes and these new technologies are very important for now and also for the future.”

Believe it or not, volunteers and staff will still go out and actually count mosquitoes.

Goodman said, “The science of mosquito control is really growing rapidly, but there’s still segments of it that are still very labor intensive, and this is one of the things that I’ve been working on since I’ve been on the board, to try to automate some of these things because we still have inspectors that go out every day and they go into 100 areas every day and count the mosquitoes that land on them, and that determines where we’re going to spray that day. They count the ones that land on them in in 60 seconds and when it gets above a certain threshold, that’s where we spray. But now we’ve been working also for more than 10 years on an automated system and sometimes developments of new technology is really slow, and this is electronic use of traps, where we put these traps out in these remote areas, and they have automatic sensors that they count the actual number of mosquitoes that go in there, and we will be able to eventually use this. We’ve got about 60 of those in operation right now in the Keys, and we’re adding to this every year so that we do not have to send people out in these areas, and this actually frees up about two to three hours a day per our inspector, and we have about 30 inspectors. So ultimately, this is a real game changer that we’re looking at for this new technology. It’s here, it’s working. We’re just continuing to expand it and integrate it more and more into our system every year. So this is a real game changer, and there’s a lot of things like that going on in mosquito control, not only in the chemical and in the bio pesticide world, but also in the electronics used to deploy these chemicals and to assist our people to do a better, quicker job. So that’s all in the works. A lot of things happening. It’s an exciting time to be in mosquito control if you’re a scientist.”

What are some of the goals of 2025?

Goodman said, “Today is our board meeting this afternoon (at 1 p.m.), and one of the things that we’ll be doing in the board meeting is having a presentation on all of our chemical and our mechanical systems presented to the board. If your listeners are interested, our meeting starts today at our Marathon headquarters, and we’re also live streaming on our website, if people would like to know more about some of the new technologies we’re using, and how they actually work, particularly from the chemical side. Also something that we’re doing right now too, we’ve got a community survey that we’ve sent out. It’s on our website, and we would appreciate people in the community filling this out. There’ll be a lot of opportunities you’ll find on social media to fill this out. It’s a short questionnaire, really, just to let us know how we’re doing, what we’re doing good, what we’re doing that we could improve on. This is very important for us to know, to set some of the goals, because we’ll be using this as we get into our strategic planning a little bit later this spring. So it’s very important. We really would appreciate the community taking time to fill this out, to let us know how we’re doing and guide us in the right direction for the future.”

There’s also a downloadable app on the website.

Goodman said, “The app is very important to us because we still have our phone number, 305-292-7190, if someone wants to call and place a service request or have a question. But we really like for them to use our app that they can get from their app store on both their Android and their iPhones and this works very well. You’ve got access to when we’re going to be spraying in your area, or what the mosquito counts were in your area. A lot of information that you can derive from that. So we really encourage people to use the app where possible. But also, if you want to place service request through our website, that’s certainly available also.”

Mosquito control is actually important to the economy in Florida.

Goodman said, “There’s been a lot of press releases recently really showing how if we didn’t have mosquito control and effective mosquito control in Florida, the economy here wouldn’t be like it is. The tourist based economy that we have would suffer a lot, and so we want to be sure that people realize that mosquito control is here. We’re doing our job, and we’re out to help, and we need the community to participate, too, because the Aedes aegypti mosquito that we have here, this is really our number one enemy here in the Florida Keys, all of them are reared at our homes. If everybody would walk around their property and eliminate standing water, we could eliminate almost all of the Aedes aegypti and not have to worry about it too much here. But we have 50,000 residents and businesses here in the Keys, and we’re all helping to raise these Aedes aegypti mosquito and create our problem. So we’re spending a lot of time educating the community now on what mosquito control does. It’s a big impact on the economy and a big impact on public health. We do appreciate everything that community does in working with mosquito control.”

For more information, click here:  https://keysmosquito.org/