Pinellas County workers hope to be buzzkills in the mosquito war

by Posted on
a dipper cup contains water and mosquito larvae

Kailey Travis wasn’t always a bug lover, but working six months for Pinellas County mosquito control has broadened her horizons.

“People like to ask, what’s your favorite insect?” she said. “Well, for me, every day that I learn a new one, it tends to be my new favorite insect.”

Mosquito prevention is about raising awareness and protecting citizens from the nearly 40 types of mosquitos that spread diseases, including, Travis said, Zika, dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis and St. Louis encephalitis.

Technicians attack breeding sites in many ways, sourcing unexpected help from fish and even chickens.

“We keep sentinel chickens throughout the community in different coops, and they are kind of an early warning or a detection system to let us know that a virus is cycling in our community,” Travis said.

When it comes to mosquitos, the only thing Travis hopes to spread is knowledge.

Pinellas residents can request their homes to be serviced for free. Check your county’s website for more details:

Pinellas County

Hillsborough County

Pasco County

Manatee County

Sarasota County

Polk County

Website connects farmer’s markets with a hungry public

Farmfetch is a website that lets people buy fresh products from local businesses to help compete with bigger companies.

They do this by giving vendors a space to sell and inform people where to go shop for fresh products. You can find places to shop ranging from Tampa to even Sarasota. One location you can find on the website is the Ybor City Saturday market.

“It’s really important that we have an avenue where we get the word out, and the farmer’s market helps us do that. We are non-profit, all the money goes to third graders,” said Diana Kyle, a vendor at the market.

The Ybor City market is one of the many farmers markets found on Farmfetch. They are opened Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Farmfetch says the business sells products such as fruits, vegetables and honey.

“Knowing that there is help within a community to help get our message out, get our products out in to the public, it’s invaluable,” said Drew Reinhart, another Ybor market vendor.

To find out more information on where to find a market near, visit Farmfetch on the web.

Credits

Anchor/Reporters: Diego Adesso, Victoria Crosdale

Video Editor: Antonio Delucca

Web Managing Editor: Chrisovaladou Pantelis

 Graduate Assistant: McKenzie Muskett

Faculty Adviser: Dr. Stephanie Anderson, Wayne Garcia

Published by Wayne Garcia

Wayne Garcia is an award-winning journalist and educator, working in Florida newspapers, colleges and political campaigns for 30 years. He is a senior instructor and former director of Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications. His background is in political and investigative journalism. Garcia teaches courses in Mass Communications and Society, Beginning Reporting, Advanced Reporting, the Future of Journalism, Editing I, and Writing for the Mass Media. As a journalist, he worked for the St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Tribune and Gainesville Sun daily newspapers. During his tenure as the political editor for the alt-weekly Creative Loafing, Garcia won two Sunshine State Awards for his political writing and his widely read political blog. He was the 2009 recipient of the Irene Miller Vigilance in Journalism Award from the Pinellas Chapter of the ACLU. He is a past executive director of the Florida Scholastic Press Association, the leading advocacy group for high school journalists in the state. As a political consultant for nine years, he ran or was part of more than 100 campaigns in the state of Florida. A native of Scotch Plains, N.J., who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Garcia is a Florida Gator and a USF Bull, having earned his master’s degree from USF St. Petersburg.