The buzz is building for St. Lucie County Mosquito Control & Coastal Management Services’ inaugural open house.
The event – to celebrate Mosquito Awareness Week – will be 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 28, at 3150 Will Fee Road, Fort Pierce. “For the first time, we’ll be opening our compound to the public,” said director Glenn Henderson.
“We’re going to have demonstrations of our equipment, games for the kids and information,” he continued. “We’re going to have a video showing our staff at work. Of course, we’ll have refreshments.”
When the folks at mosquito control are doing their jobs, no one much notices. If they didn’t, there probably wouldn’t be many around to notice. Mosquitos long made parts of the Florida Peninsula nearly uninhabitable.
“Florida is a very swampy place,” Henderson said. “St. Lucie County used to be part of Mosquito County years ago.”
Back in the 1500s, the Spanish called Florida’s east coast “Los Musquitos.”
After the United States took possession of Florida, it split the future state into Escambia and St. Johns counties. Not long after, Mosquito County was split from St. Johns. It included about a 100-mile-wide stretch from modern-day Palm Beach to Volusia counties. That stretch of Florida was never terribly popular in the 1800s, in part because of thick clouds of mosquitos that carried several diseases that were frequently fatal in those days.
Those dangers were highlighted in 1888 when a traveler from Tampa headed to Jacksonville. He was knowingly or unknowingly carrying yellow fever with him. Jacksonville happened to be having a favorable weather for mosquitos that year. The combination was fatal in a city with about 20,000 at the time.
About a quarter of Jacksonville’s residents contracted yellow fever. Yellow flags hung outside many homes warning people not to approach them. At the time, people didn’t know mosquitos transmitted the disease, although some suspected. Many of those yellow flags were swapped out for black ones to indicate deaths. There were about 500.
Many tried to flee Jacksonville. Other cities in the South formed armed posses to prevent them from leaving Jacksonville. While reports say some died or were killed in ill-prepared evacuations, how many is not known.
The yellow fever outbreak prompted the legislature to create the Florida State Board of Health, what is now the Florida Department of Health. In 1900, health officials figured out that certain species of mosquitos transmit yellow fever. Mosquito-control efforts started in the Sunshine State, but not fast enough for some.
The Florida Anti-Mosquito Association formed in Daytona Beach in 1922. Yes, the name sounds a bit silly today, but the association was made up of doctors and health scientists to push for more mosquito-control action. Indian River County was the first in the state to have a legislature-created mosquito control district. That was in 1925. St. Lucie County had the second in 1926.
Henderson said that while mosquito-control efforts have greatly reduced the health hazards, they still exist. Modern medical treatments have greatly reduced death rates from mosquito-borne diseases, but stopping their spread is still the best public-health policy.
Whether or not people go to the open house to learn about the variety of methods mosquito control uses to reduce populations, Henderson said they can still play an important role in keeping the pests manageable.
“We will never be able to eradicate that pest,” he said. “But, it’s really important for the public to participate and do their part.
“That includes tipping and tossing water-holding containers in their yards. Anything that can hold a teaspoon of water can breed mosquitos.”
Mosquito-control efforts have increasingly turned from spraying chemicals to denying the pests places to breed.
The most problematic species along Florida’s east coast is the salt marsh mosquito. They don’t lay their eggs in water as most species do. They lay them in mud that gets covered with water later for them to hatch. St. Lucie County has created 24 mosquito impoundment areas, places it keeps underwater, so the salt marsh mosquitos can’t lay their eggs.
“There’s a lot of birdwatching and wildlife viewing (at the impoundment areas),” Henderson said. “We want people to do out and view these areas and enjoy them.
“They have trails. The dykes hold a maintenance road that’s a trail. You can’t drive in there, but you can hike or bike. We have, for the open house, we’re producing a new brochure on our mosquito impoundments that have maps on them.”
For more, visit www.stlucieco.gov/mosquito.