Record high tide releases dormant mosquitoes
(CNS): The community has been battling with another surge in mosquitoes this month caused by a record-breaking high tide, the Mosquito Research Control Unit (MRCU) has said. According to NOAA, high tide flooding is increasingly common due to rising sea levels and the loss of natural barriers. Tides in the Cayman Islands rose as high as 64cm this month, the highest ever recorded by the MRCU. This unprecedented rise in tides has caused mosquito eggs that have been dormant for many years to hatch.
While this emergence is not the worst so far this year, its impact has been more intense because both MRCU planes have been down for at least a week. One was already grounded for a regular maintenance check when a necessary repair was needed on the second plane.
In the face of concerns about the increase in the number of mosquitos and complaints from the public, officials issued a statement Friday evening explaining the current state of play and how the MRCU is addressing it.
MRCU Director Dr Alan Wheeler said that so far in 2023, there had been three major emergences of mosquitos, the most significant of which was on 20 February, which “saw an average trap catch of 277 mosquitoes. The emergence on the 27th March saw an average of 214 mosquitoes per trap. The current emergence has so far peaked at an average of 132 mosquitoes per trap. It is expected to increase further over the next few days as more mosquitoes emerge.”
While there was some heavy rainfall in April, Dr Wheeler said this emergence is due to the high tides. “Any tide that is above 30cm will cause flooding of the mangrove areas,” he explained. “On 6th April, the tide rose above this level and increased gradually until it reached a peak of 64cm on the 19th April. This is the highest-ever tide recorded by MRCU. The result of this extended high tide has been to hatch mosquito eggs that have remained dormant for many years.”
MRCU insecticide applications are conducted based on a daily evaluation of the mosquito situation, not on a set schedule. Since the onset of the current mosquito emergence on 13 April, MRCU has conducted 40 separate ground ultra-low volume (ULV) control missions across Grand Cayman and treated a total of 68,143 acres.
The MRCU has been unable to conduct any aerial operations since 14 April because it was found that repairs were required on one of the aircraft during its weekly inspection. The necessary technical experts are on island working to resolve the problem, and the plane is expected to return to service by the middle of next week, according to the release.
MRCU’s second aircraft is currently undergoing its required annual inspection and will not be available for about a month until this is completed. Officials at the health ministry said they expect aerial operations will resume soon, possibly next week, as they apologised for the current necessary inconvenience.
Chief Officer Nellie Pouchie said the Ministry of Health and Wellness had received inquiries about staffing at the MRCU Aerial Operations Unit and confirmed that it currently has just one full-time pilot. However, she said that the recruitment process for a second pilot was underway “to ensure that aerial operations are properly resourced”.
The MRCU’s planes are also a part of local support services. For example, they can be used if the Cayman Islands Fire Service needs assistance dousing fires from the air.
“Given the demands of the post, the proximity which the aircraft flies in residential areas, and the modifications of the airplane to ensure that it meets the changing needs of MRCU’s control operations, this post requires an experienced pilot, so recruiting the person with the necessary skills takes time,” Pouchie added.
According to the release, following complaints about MRCU flights, the ministry is working closely with the department to educate residents and visitors about the aerial operations, which MRCU Acting Chief Pilot Ben Tresidder said fall into two general categories: killing adult mosquitoes (adulticiding) and killing larvae (larviciding).
Flying mosquitoes “looking for a blood meal” are targeted using ultra-low-volume liquid. This takes place in the evenings because this is when mosquitoes are usually active. “Larvaciding operations, by contrast, are generally granular applications that target mosquito larvae, with the aim of preventing them from developing to become flying mosquitoes,” he explained. For safety reasons, this is done during daylight hours.
“Adulticiding and larviciding involve differing aerial application techniques,” Tresidder said. “One noticeable difference is that whereas adulticiding operations may mean a single pass over a particular area, larvaciding operations often require several passes in the same vicinity and may mean that our aircraft ‘lingers’ for an extended period of time.”
MRCU’s aerial and ground operations are essential to prevent the transmission of mosquito-related illnesses in the Cayman Islands, and there have been no reported cases this year. Nevertheless, officials advised wearing long sleeves and using mosquito repellent while outdoors during the peak mosquito hours at sunrise and sunset. Draining still water in outdoor receptacles, such as tyres, containers and flower pots, will also prevent mosquito breeding.
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Category: Environmental Health, Health, Medical Health
All this new development has led to new areas flooding. For example, the huge apartment complex going up in West Bay has created a horrible standing water area and the mosquitoes are terrible.
There is quite a bit of standing water all over West Bay where new apartments are or have been built.
And the last time my family dined on a patio at night, we were offered OFF insect spray as were others. So many people were spraying that DEET poison, that you could taste it.
That was the last time we have dined outdoors at night, and its really dumb to be spraying DEET around food. Its poison!!!
Fix the radar!
One of them East End mosquitoes ran in to it probably.
No Doppler on Earth can penetrate the East End cloud of mosquitoes.
Was any thought given to renting a substitute when they knew one would be down fo scheduled maintenance?
Like the militaries and emergency forces around the world say, “2 is 1, 1 is none”?
Nah, this is the Cayman Islands.
🧐😕🤔Ever wondered how a human body survives daily exposure to the following (and why cancer rates have skyrocketed):
🪳🐀🦟Insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, fungicides, dioxins, furans, chlorine, moldicides, glyphosate
🛫🚗🚛 benzene, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, ethylbenzene, and 1,3-butadiene ( car exhaust),
🧯🧑🏾🚒nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic chemicals, polycyclic organic matter (trash burning),
👩🏻🔬🧑🏻⚕️🦠🩸💉🩹💊🧴🧫Mercury, Pharmaceuticals,Sterilants and disinfectants, Cleaning chemicals, Laboratory chemicals (Common Hazardous Materials in Healthcare Facilities)
☢️ ⚠️ technetium-99m (Tc-99m), Iodine-131(I-131), Iodine-125 (I-125), Iodine-123(I-123), Flourine-18(F-18), Tritium (H-3) and Carbon-14(C-14) (radioisotopes used in hospitals, radiology, dental, animal clinics)
💡🙈🎤🙉Noise, light pollution, man made EMF, smart meters
🧑🦽🤮🤕🤧🤢🤒⚰️⚱️🪦💀
There were higher tides 15 years ago. Remember when Cayman Kai was totally flooded?
I remember watching them at Deckers
Paids millions to americans to release millions of GMO mosquitoes here and these are the results. All parties involved should be arrested and left by the mosquito ponds.
Only if we had an effective, forward thinking, competent minister of heath. That’s a tall order but in this day and age other civilised countries are using drones for this job. In fact Japan has been using drones in a similar capacity for over two decades. Why is the one department that provides the most essential services supporting public wellbeing and disease vector prevention stuck in the dark ages?
Drones are now very cost effective ranging from $15k-$20k per unit such as (https://hse-uav.com/products/xag-p100-10-6-gal-40l-spraying-drone) Aircraft such as MRCU’s kaput Ayres Turbo Thrush S2RHG-T65 are much more costly and maintenance intensive. A couple of squadrons (24) of sprayer drones are a fraction of the cost of their plane. Spares for drones are cheaper too. And if a few in your squadron are down for repairs you still have coverage. Drones available today can also fly autonomously with preprogrammed routes.
And guess what? Florida has been using drones since 2013 specifically for mosquito control: https://futurism.com/the-byte/florida-officials-are-using-drones-to-kill-mosquitoes
But then again Dr. Petrie left probably because he was so frustrated with MRCU’s impotent ministerial handlers and health minister stuck in the dark ages chanting scripture.
The window for adulticiding is very small. Aircraft are the only effective way to treat large areas in a short space of time. There are also very strict weight limitations for UAV operation over populated areas and for good reason. Drones have a place but as yet cannot be as effective as aircraft.
So having just one working, or should I say limping aircraft and pilot is effective then? I find your argument incredible based on how drones are being used elsewhere. Then again I see technophobia as being a serious impediment to change in Cayman.
Thank you 12:59. Wheeler raised hell on earth to get this job by disparaging/ bad mouthing/ undermining Petrie, getting rid of the American who succeeded him, and by sucking up to politicians so he could be appointed. Now he’s got the job, he’s a deer stuck in the headlights, totally at sea and unable to cope with the problems he bitched at his predecessors about. I hate to say it but many of us are saying “ da wha’ yuh get”. But unfortunately it’s us the general public that’s suffering.
M.R.C.U
You had one job.
Actually two. Research and control.
Research lol…
Underdevelopment is the primary cause of this issue.
The more we build, the less breeding grounds these pests have.
Simply science really.
Yet another Caymanian edcuation system success story!
“non-biting sterile males” – how can one be sterile and still have offspring??? And the male mosquitos don’t bite anyway… people really expected results from this madness?
“The genetically engineered, non-biting sterile males, which will be released in the first phase of the island-wide project, will mate with local females. The subsequent offspring will then die before reaching adulthood, significantly reducing the population. Cayman Brac and Little Cayman are not affected by the Aedes aegypti mosquito so the GM mosquitoes will not be released there.”
https://caymannewsservice.com/2016/07/gm-mosquito-release-to-begin-next-week/
Me: Doc I feel sick.
Doc: Wow, you have a high fever.
Me: Please tell me we can fix it.
Doc: Sure, sit in a hot sauna for the next few weeks. The extra heat will kill you and your fever will go away.
I feel bad for the cows and horses outside in the mosquito battlefields.
Time to get to the bottom of this mess. The ombudsman’s office should be investigating who’s negligence lead the MRCU only having one plane and pilot. The person(s) responsible for this negligence need to be handed pink slips with no severance now! If the current or former ministers were involved the public needs to know.
It’s the 21st century for $hit’s sake why is MRCU still flying traditional aircraft for this job? In Asia, Europe and increasingly in North and South America drones are being used for agricultural purposes. Japan in particular has been using drone helicopters for over 2 decades for crop spraying.
These types of drones are becoming less expensive every year as they become cheaper to manufacture and increase in popularity.
A few squadrons of these drones can be had for a fraction of the cost of an Ayres turbo thrush s2rhg-t65 they’re currently not flying. Even if a few fail and have to be repaired there would still be considerable area coverage. And I’m quite sure there are at least half a dozen avid drone pilots on island that could take up the task.
But as usual our dumb, juvenile idiot politicians and chief officers, dinosaur department directors have failed us once again by burying their heads in the beach hoping the mosquitoes will simply go extinct.
Madam Governor, I surely hope you look into our current mosquito control situation with the eye to bringing this essential service out of the dark ages and on par with current first world technological capabilities. That is if you don’t get surrounded by clouds of them and have to retreat back into your residence.
I live in th Beach Bay area and the mosquitoes are out all day and night. The fogging van came by a few times but they are in and out to swiftly that it doesn’t seem to help. Cant they linger awhile?
Moral of the story? Move to somewhere more developed if you want less mosquitoes.
OK Mr Dart, mighty massah of concrete jungle
Well Oxitec was trying to help eradicate the Aedes Aegypti mosquito years ago, but these foolish ass people would have rather have them around to have something to complain about. These mosquitos feed day and night and carry diseases. But when a person is simple and uneducated, no need to help them! Cayman has 35 different breeds of mosquito by the way.
More bats, please. Save us, bat army!
We need to call Batman, maybe he can deal with all the jokers in CIG who let this slide.
Seems the traps are effective at catching mosquitoes.. why don’t we install a million traps on the island? Problem solved. You’re welcome.
Please ask Petrie when you see him about the Oxitec sterilization program in Cayman and how that program that was suppose to neutralize the Cayman Mosquitoes 🦟 I am no conspiracy theorist but the timing and sale to intrexon 160 million was as mysterious as the origins on Covid 19.
is it possible to bring in a small plane whilst the repairs are done to the existing 2?
Drones
You keep droning on about that.
Drones are cheaper than operating planes, but, alas.
MRCU has been in failure mode since the departure of Dr Petrie. We know this because of the dramatic increase in mosquito levels for the past 4 years.
At least the people in 1965 could look forward to the arrival of Dr Giglioli.
Any responsible Govt would take steps to fix this disaster. All CIG can do is spend money and get nothing.
I recall Oxitech bragging about how their GMO mosquitos would be bigger and stronger than natural male mosquitos so that they could breed more females with their magic fluid that would cause the females to not reproduce or reproduce with GMO offspring that were supposed to have short life spans and all the rest of the crap they fed the public about their experiment.
Perhaps those stronger and faster GMO mosquitos are contributing to the past several years of increased mosquito population. Not to mention, these mosquitos do seem faster and more aggressive than anything in my days growing up in Cayman.
The point was they were sterile.
More sterility wouldn’t be a bad thing in these parts.
Strap on a new rubber band and get those things back in the air.
zzzzzz…its just the usual incompetence and failure from cig and civil service.
who’s surprised?…they struggle with a parking ticketing system at the airport!
Bacillus Thuringiensis is a naturally occurring and non-pathogenic solution which is available to both homeowners and the relevant authorities alike. It is accepted as an organic pesticide in it’s form as a product for foliar application on plants grown for human consumption and is marketed under the trade name of “dipel” for this purpose. BT is also the active ingredient in “dunkit’ disks and granules which are applied to areas of standing water and it is an effective solution for the mitigation of mosquito infestations as it acts as a safe, natural and organic larvicide. This product could and/or should be made available to the general public for either a highly subsidized cost or for free if one is serious about doing all that is necessary to battle the issue of mosquitoes. Although said product is available to the retail market in limited amounts, it often sold out when the mosquito loads are high, it is cost prohibitive at it’s retailed pricing and the stocks are seemingly always lacking when needed. My suggestion is for the relevant authorities to supply the general public with this product for residential/farm use. This is a solution which is not only doable, but it is also a necessary step forward in controlling the mosquito population in these Cayman Islands which could have and should have been implemented a long time ago.
I have for the last few years sprayed my own yard area with the cutter type spray available at the hardware stores, whilst not perfect it has def helped. Also use the mosquito dunks in my plants that hold water and have planted as much lemongrass in my garden area that’s reasonable. STILL this year is the absolute WORST ever and at all times of the day, not just sunrise/sunset.
Burning more ganja helps too.
Mozzies are so bad at night let alone even in the day.
I been Deep in the Amazon jungle and the mozzies where better than they are in Cayman right now.
The gmo mozzies failed and the public payed for it, the MRCU fail and the public pays for it.
Start a government department or allow another private company to come and do a better job than the MRCU.
We are one tropical storm away from having mozzies kill cows from blocking there noses like what happened in the 40-50s.
They knew this was coming and they did nothing before hand.
blah, blah same crap every year they blame it on pilots going on vacation or planes breaking down.
I thought that the canals along the dyke roads were dug to allow sea to flow through because mosquitoes cannot survive in salt water? That is what we were told way back when.! Were they lying ?
They can survive bro. Don’t rely on those old time uneducated guesses.
Different types of mosquito have varying tolerances of salinity.
No need to be all salty about it.
I guess you’re the one to provide the new company!