The Florida Keys agency charged with keeping the island chain’s mosquito swarms at bay might become the nation’s first to use drones to spot remote breeding grounds as part of efforts to eradicate the insect.
“If you try to get across the small islands it’s back country, it’s jungle,” said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, who added the drones wouldn’t replace boots on the ground, but would help turn eradication efforts into “smart bombing.” On 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’s most popular tourist destinations.
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.
Condor 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.
Inspectors will have to take pilot training certification courses and local officials will have to seek Federal Aviation Authority approval to fly the drones. “They’re not going to be used for surveillance,” Culbertson stressed.
Condor Aerial is a division of Prioria Robotics, a north Florida-based manufacturer that in 2010 received a $2.8 million contract from Canada to supply reconnaissance drones in Afghanistan. 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.
