AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - April 2015 - 67

ONLY THE MILITARY-SURPLUS Douglas
C-47s Miller astutely acquired for
the county could efficiently cover a
1,000-square-mile area with Diabrom
(Malathion was used in the past)-often
flying as flights of two or three aircraft. You
could feel the difference almost immediately after the bug bombers receded into
the distance. While Miller knew that aerial
application of adulticide chemicals (killing adult mosquitos) was improving life
for Florida residents, there had to be more
effective ways of eliminating the menace.
Reducing standing water where people
lived had, until then, been the population's
best defense-but on a peninsula defined
by its natural swamps, mangrove shallows,
and saltwater flats, one can only reduce so
much. Data from the LCMCD research labs
suggested that interrupting the lifecycle of
the mosquito held potential.
Today, mosquito larvae are treated with
methoprene, a hormone that causes the
adult mosquito to fail to emerge from pupae.
It is applied by helicopters (JetRangers,
Hueys, and Bell 407s) and can provide 12 to
15 weeks of relief from mosquitos-but that
rarely happens in South Florida. Not all eggs
hatch at once, so larvaciding may kill only a
quarter of a brood, or less. It is common for
LCMCD pilots to stay busy reapplying the
hormone several times between May and
October to keep mosquitos down.
IN THE DISTRICT'S laboratory several species
of mosquito larvae are grown in controlled
conditions and subject to varying quantities of the hormone at different points
in their development. "We are constantly
changing up formulas to keep the mosquitos from becoming resistant," explained
Shelly Redovan, deputy director of education and communications for LCMCD. In
another screened area are adult mosquitos,
also subject to chemical experimentation.
Not all mosquitos are disease carriers,
Redovan noted. "We are careful to leave
larvae in the mangrove fish hatcheries," she
explained, pointing out that juvenile grouper, snapper, and snook rely on them for
food. Frogs, spiders, and dragonflies also
eat mosquitos. "There's a balance to the
ecosystem that has to be maintained. For

that reason, we can't spray certain state or
federal land at all."
As a result, the county is pockmarked
with parcels off-limits to larvaciding and
adulticiding, creating real challenge for
aerial applicators. New in-cockpit hardware and software, as well as innovative
spray technology and guidance developed
by AG-Nav and LCMCD in the past decade,
have made spraying with near-pinpoint
accuracy a reality.
ACROSS THE HALL from the warm, moist
growing area is a meticulously clean,
icy cold lab where biotechnician Milton
Sterling processes blood drawn from the
county's 17 flocks of sentinel chickens.
"Birds get bit by mosquitos, too. We keep
these birds throughout the county," he said.
"Each week the pilots take technicians out
to the birds to draw blood from the chickens and bring it back here. I process it to see
if I can find antibodies to our known problem diseases." Sterling searches for distinct
RNA strands that indicate disease exposure; if it does, he checks in with both the
local health department and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta,
where the hunt begins for patient zero.
"Some of those who get sick were actually bitten and infected outside of Florida,
but when they travel here and are bitten
by our mosquitos, the diseases spreads,"
Sterling said. Chikungunya and Dengue
are two diseases that require a human-tomosquito-to-human connection. They are
carried by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, both of which live in south Florida.
When the helicopters aren't spraying or
making chicken runs to collect blood, they
are carrying inspectors to known mosquito
"holes" where they can dip their white
inspection ladles into the swampy shallows
and do quick counts that help establish both
when methoprene application is required,
and when it might be too late.
"If the hatch is about to go off, then it is
time to get the aircraft loaded with Diabrom
and call ARTCC to let them know we'll be
adulticiding at night," said Rick O'Neal,
chief pilot for LCMCD. The call is a courtesy; ARTCC assigns the bug bombers a
discrete squawk code and stands ready in

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA accounts for

a full 33 percent of the larvacide
and adulticide aerial application
in the state (top). Why? Just look
at the amount of open water and
wetlands it harbors-perfect
mosquito breeding grounds.
Treatment areas are in red.
Facing page: It is an exact science
creating droplets of chemical that
are small enough to kill flying
mosquitoes. The DC-3s now have
external chemical tanks (bottom
row, center). The sophisticated
pitot tube has its own ADHRS to
provide real-time wind correction
in flight to the AG-Nav auto-spray
system (bottom row, left).
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AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - April 2015

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