This improves worker and public safety, says the county’s chief of mosquito control.
By Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: November 28, 2025
Host: Sarasota County has come up with a new way of killing mosquitos: By applying pesticides from drones. Ramon Lopez reports.
Ramon Lopez: Development of drone technology has advanced to the point that the aerial platforms are now being used to kill Russian tanks in the Ukraine, support police surveillance and even wash windows in downtown Sarasota.
Photo courtesy of Sarasota County
But Sarasota County has found another use for drones: Mosquito management, primarily to control life threatening mosquito-transmitted maladies including Malaria and West Nile Virus.
But citizen creature comfort, keeping mosquito bites at bay, is an offshoot benefit for the public, say officials with county mosquito management services.
Last month, they added drones to the mosquito control toolkit. Previously, county workers only applied pesticides from trucks and small fixed-wing aircraft to control mosquito maladies.
County Mosquito Manager Wade Brennan says use of small unmanned air vehicles enhances safety for both mosquito workers and the general public.
Wade Brennan. Photo courtesy of Sarasota County
Wade Brennan: This really helps our staff out, too, because it is more efficient and it keeps them safe from all the poisonous organisms and all the little aggressive organisms like poisonous snakes, alligators—things like that—that can actually wear on their safety. We want to keep them safe. We’ve been treating these woodlots and swamps for many years with our field crews, but now we can use this advanced technology to do precision targeting of these larvicides. We’re very confident that this will work and work well.
RL: The county’s mosquito murderers work when flying mosquitos are most active: dusk and night. The county staff works alongside employees of Clark, which developed mosquito control products. Company equipment, including the mission-specific drone, flight control system and related hardware, belong to the Illinois tech company. Sarasota County joins others in using drones.
It’s a big job. In 2024, more than 770,000 acres throughout the county were treated to reduce mosquito populations. The last case of Malaria in the county was in 2023.
Photo courtesy of Sarasota County
WB: Luckily, we have been in great shape over the about two years since we had that emergence of malaria, but we want to make sure we’re prepared for the next time we have a threat that may come our way.
RL: A mission-specific four-foot by four-foot drone is now used to handle the larvicide and adulticide missions. The drone operates at around 100 to 125 feet in the air during daylight hours. It is made by Central UAS Technologies.
The drone holds about 40 pounds of granular mosquito larvae-killing pesticide, which is dropped into mosquito-breeding water. A FAA-certified Clarke drone pilot does the flying under county mosquito management services supervision. The idea of using drones was hatched by county and company workers with the endorsement of the CDC and Florida Department of Agriculture.
The work is based on acreage treatment. The drone mosquito abatement work starts in June and runs through October.
There’s been seven drone applications, and county officials are “extremely happy” with the results. They look forward to a full-season of drone ops starting in 2026.
WB: We’re very confident that these applications will go at full success. We’ve partnered up with Clarke. They’re one of the world’s largest mosquito control vendors in the world, and we’ve actually been using them for quite a few years with our truck and aerial application.
RL: This is Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
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