10 - Modernizing a Mosquito Control Surveillance Network, St. Lucie County, Florida

Abstract: Prior to 2022, St. Lucie County Mosquito Control relied on an aging network of Mosquito Magnets as its workhorse mosquito surveillance trap. These traps required heavy propane tanks to power, significant amounts of time to begin running, and constant maintenance. Looking to revolutionize its surveillance capabilities, St. Lucie County invested in purchasing over three dozen Biogents Counters. These traps could be solar powered, baited with CO2, and could capture mosquito data in real time. To protect these traps from damage and theft in the field, they are encased in aluminum cages which were in part made by members of our impoundment staff. The BG Counters have significantly increased our ability to track mosquito populations while also reducing burden on field staff. As changes were happening with our trapping protocol, renovations were also happening within our sentinel chicken program. Old chicken coops were made of plastic and were easily damaged by wild animals and strong winds. They also were not easy to remove from field sites as they lacked wheels and often got stuck in the mud following heavy rainfall. To better secure our chickens, we redesigned our coups out of metal. The new blueprint featured two separate levels so that chicken feces does not aggregate which helps keep the coups significantly cleaner. Central PVC pipes run water and chicken feed to each of the six housing units in which a chicken is placed. These changes have significantly improved the safety and comfort of our sentinel chickens. Collectively, both the changes to our surveillance network and sentinel chicken coups have reduced burden on staff while allowing for better detection of both mosquito species and arboviruses.