Parasites. You may know Florida for its sunshine and beaches, but you can’t forget its bugs. A state this far south that stays this wet is bound to have insects. And boy, do we have a lot of them. But, I’m not a guy that generally hates most bugs. But the ones that suck my blood? Yeah. I hate those bugs. Especially the mosquito.
Naturally, we’re going to be talking about the mosquito today. And here in Florida, they’re so bad that we used to have a county called mosquito county. And though the name has changed to Orange County, the mosquitoes are still here.
A couple of horses in Lake County tested positive for Eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE. It’s not likely, but a mosquito could bite them and then bite you. Then you’d throw up, get a high fever, brain swelling, seizures and either die or be left mentally incapacitated.
Welcome to the Sunshine State!
And Florida has been at war with these mosquitoes ever since it’s been a state. Who knows, maybe one day we can win?
Not really. “It’s kind of a bummer,” Kelly Deutsch. She’s the manager of the Orange/Mosquito County Mosquito Control Division.
She had recently discussed a type of genetically modified mosquito that, if released and bred with the local population, may damage their numbers massively. Who knows, it could maybe even win use the war against the blood-sucking parasites, right? Well. Wrong.
“It’s not an option,” Deutsch said, “and I don’t think it ever will be.”
Deutsch said there are about 40 species in Central Florida. Only two are invasive, meaning they came here from somewhere else and are bad news. In case you need names, don’t invite the Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus to your next cookout.
Each species would need its own GMO-engineered secret agent mosquito to sneak into the population and start the genocide. Nobody has 40 of those in the works for Central Florida, much less 3,500 worldwide. Scientists are also working on other genetic remedies. But for now, simply GMO-ing mosquitoes away is a midsummer night’s dream.
“It’s not an option,” Deutsch said, “and I don’t think it ever will be.”
One of the biggest issues is private homeowners not emptying containers of standing water on their property. In fact, you are the biggest issue when it comes to mosquito population. If everyone removed standing water when they could, the number would drop massively. Alas, as Kelly said,
“We don’t have the ability to access private property without the homeowner’s permission,” Deutsch said.
If you do have a massive problem past the point of just emptying water, consider a natural pest control company. Chemicals like roundup are recently being called into question safety-wise, so stick with a pro that uses a natural remedy. Or you can just live with the mosquitoes and get eaten alive. But nobody wants that…do they?
