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Volusia County mosquito-control director explains surveillance, treatment thresholds and new drone use
Summary
Marcus McDonough, director of Volusia County Mosquito Control, described the program’s surveillance tools (sentinel chickens, landing-rate counts, mosquito fish), a 10-landings-per-minute treatment threshold, roughly 50,000 acres of salt marsh to manage, and the county’s move to drone treatments for hard-to-access areas.
Marcus McDonough, director of Volusia County Mosquito Control, told hosts of the county’s "It's Giving Government" podcast that the program balances surveillance, targeted treatments and public education to reduce nuisance biting and limit mosquito-borne disease risk.
McDonough said the county uses several surveillance tools to detect both mosquito abundance and disease. "We have a small group called sentinel chickens," he said, explaining that staff draw blood weekly from chickens placed around the county to test for antibodies to West Nile virus, eastern equine encephalitis and St. Louis encephalitis. He added that the chickens serve as an early indicator and “they don't actually get sick from those diseases.”
The program also uses human-landing-rate surveillance and a numeric threshold to guide control decisions. "Ten is our treatment threshold,"…
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