More Mosquitoes This Summer But They Get A Drone Response In Florida

Are there more mosquitoes this summer? Or is it just your imagination?

Well, let’s put it this way. It isn’t just you who has been driven mad by the endless buzzing of this summer’s tireless mosquito swarms.

USA Today said Tuesday that there are definitely more mosquitoes — and more dangerous mosquitoes — in some parts of the country this summer. According to reporter Seth Borenstein, the southeast has been particularly hard-hit.

That’s because the two drought years of 2011 and 2012 have been followed by the very wet summer of 2013. So we’re not just getting hit by hatching mosquitoes from this year’s batch.

The left-over eggs that couldn’t hatch when it was too dry are now shipping out mosquito larvae too.

Ugh.

With malaria eradicated and dengue rare in the United States, West Nile Virus is currently considered to be the nation’s biggest mosquito-borne disease. There were a record 286 West Nile deaths in the US last year — a small but scary gain over the previous 2002 record of 284 dead from the disease.

According to the CDC’s West Nile Virus report on August 20, there have been only 11 WNV deaths so far in 2013. By that measure, there aren’t more mosquitoes — or at least there are not more WNV-infected mosquitoes.

But the summer is far from over, and all the records aren’t yet in.

And even if the rate of WNV is lower, people are tired of sitting back and taking it.

Last week, the state of Florida revealed that they may start using mosquito tracking drones to get control of the state’s 40 species of the biting insects.

Physorg writer Nancy Owano revealed that the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District has invited several government agencies to an August 26 test flight. The falcon-sized, vaguely falcon-shaped drones can be outfitted with an infrared camera to scope out areas where mosquitoes are breeding.

The key to stopping mosquitoes is to find the shallow puddles where the mosquitoes lay their eggs. If the puddles are treated in time, the mosquitoes never hatch.

Hands down, that’s the coolest method to prevent more mosquitoes that I’ve heard proposed this summer.

[mosquito photo by Henrik Larsson via Shutterstock]