Drones becoming new tool in fight against mosquitoes in SWFL

The battle to protect SWFL from mosquitoes is soaring to a whole new level. Drones have become the newest tool coming to the area to fight the annoying bugs.

President Trump’s administration chose Fort Myers as one of 10 cities to find new uses for drones.

“If they want to use drones, if they want to use dynamite…I don’t care. Anything we can do to keep the mosquito population down,” said North Fort Myers resident Christine Tressel.

Tressel visits Pine Island every other week to go fishing. Although she always comes equipped with her bug spray, she’s still concerned about the mosquitoes as rainy season approaches.

“They are bad anywhere there’s water, standing water, and along here, water stands everywhere,” she said.

Lee County Mosquito Control says the pilot program will use drones to survey areas that are otherwise hard to access, as well as assist in spraying.

“I think they will be able to pinpoint these locations better than these planes flying over and the helicopters spraying everywhere,” Tressel said.

It’s a new approach Tressel welcomes in the fight against mosquitoes.

“We live in North Fort Myers and we’ve had planes go over at night dropping mosquito repellent, we’ve had helicopters spraying, so it doesn’t concern me at all,” Tressel added.

The administration will test drones for several programs in 10 cities. In Reno, Nevada, drones will deliver defibrillators for the local 911 system.