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Mosquito-Borne Illnesses In Michigan: What to Know · PEST PROSpectives

• 0:08
  Richard Piet: I'm Richard Piet.
• 0:09
  Richard Piet: This is PEST PROSpectives, the official podcast from the Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 0:15
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorrentino's back with us, associate certified entomologist with Pest Pros.
• 0:20
  Richard Piet: Today we're talking about something fairly serious: mosquito-born illnesses, things like Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile.
• 0:31
  Richard Piet: Tony, not uh light subjects, I guess, huh?
• 0:36
  Tony Sorrentino: It's a commonly overlooked method of of transmission that has a real impact on the public health.
• 0:44
  Tony Sorrentino: And that's one of the things that we that we you know strive to protect the most, is we're public health warriors.
• 0:51
  Richard Piet: And to that end, some of these are referred to as arbovirus.
• 0:55
  Richard Piet: Is that right?
• 0:56
  Tony Sorrentino: Yep.
• 0:57
  Tony Sorrentino: That's a arthropod-borne virus.
• 1:00
  Tony Sorrentino: Um it transfers directly from arthropods to human beings.
• 1:05
  Richard Piet: So uh what's the difference here?
• 1:07
  Richard Piet: When we're talking about triple E and West Nile and these kinds of things, uh, I suppose it's good to know what the difference is.
• 1:15
  Richard Piet: The point is you don't feel well.
• 1:17
  Tony Sorrentino: That's that's right.
• 1:18
  Tony Sorrentino: Um West Nile's pretty common.
• 1:20
  Tony Sorrentino: We see that in Michigan.
• 1:22
  Tony Sorrentino: It it appears every year.
• 1:24
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, Eastern equine encephalitis is a little more rare, but it's one of the most dangerous mosquito-borne diseases that we encounter.
• 1:32
  Tony Sorrentino: How does a mosquito get it to begin with?
• 1:35
  Tony Sorrentino: They feed on lots and lots of different mammal species.
• 1:40
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, and one uh is a bird.
• 1:42
  Tony Sorrentino: Birds carry the virus, so mosquito feeds and become infected, and then it transfers from the the avian source through the mosquito to the human.
• 1:55
  Richard Piet: As you look at it, then your view on it is a mosquito control issue, then?
• 1:59
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah.
• 2:00
  Richard Piet: So what should folks watch out for?
• 2:03
  Tony Sorrentino: Most mosquitoes are incredibly weak flyers, and so um that heavy brush along the edge of your yard is going to be where we focus our treatment efforts to help control the adult population on your property.
• 2:18
  Richard Piet: Aaron Powell We've also talked in other episodes about just generally about mosquitoes and standing water and things of that nature.
• 2:24
  Richard Piet: This is probably part of the um overall inspection that you're doing.
• 2:29
  Richard Piet: You're watching for those things.
• 2:31
  Tony Sorrentino: Absolutely.
• 2:32
  Tony Sorrentino: When we come out to do an on-site evaluation, um that that's what we're looking for.
• 2:36
  Tony Sorrentino: We're looking for harborage areas, the heavy, dense vegetation along the outer edge of your property, the standing water sources, the tires, the buckets.
• 2:46
  Richard Piet: So what can homeowners actually do?
• 2:49
  Richard Piet: I mean, should we be in addition to eliminating standing water and that sort of thing, is there anything we can do that you recommend before we even call you?
• 2:58
  Tony Sorrentino: Aaron Powell Again, with the standing water sources, those I call them mosquito breeders.
• 3:02
  Tony Sorrentino: You see the the larval stage of mosquitoes in there wiggling and wobbling back and forth in the water.
• 3:09
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, dump it out, it kills them, and then we're gonna have less mosquitoes.
• 3:13
  Tony Sorrentino: Pairing it with uh uh, like I said earlier, a mosquito treatment program on the property does wonders to reduce the the standing adult population.
• 3:23
  Richard Piet: Yeah, so that's good to know.
• 3:24
  Richard Piet: I mean, uh just dumping the water out can take care of the situation.
• 3:28
  Richard Piet: There's nothing further you need to do at that point, but um, maybe eliminating the potential for it to begin with, good to know.
• 3:36
  Richard Piet: Are there things we get wrong uh when we are trying to assess our own risk when uh mosquitoes are around us?
• 3:45
  Richard Piet: For example, I mean, if you go out in your yard and you discover that there's a lot of mosquitoes around, uh we probably shouldn't automatically assume that mosquito burn illnesses are a given, but uh that's a potential at least.
• 4:03
  Tony Sorrentino: The the proof is that that it that it happens.
• 4:07
  Tony Sorrentino: In 2019, there was 10 human eastern equine and cephalitis cases.
• 4:12
  Tony Sorrentino: Um I know that Kalamazoo metropolitan area is about 220,000 people, and 10 doesn't sound like a lot, but in some cases this can be life-ending.
• 4:22
  Tony Sorrentino: These these these cases can be fatal.
• 4:25
  Tony Sorrentino: In 2024, there was a Westnow case in Calhoun County.
• 4:28
  Tony Sorrentino: In 2025, there was Westnow cases in Kalamazoo and Kent counties.
• 4:32
  Tony Sorrentino: The Kent County case resulted in death that year.
• 4:35
  Tony Sorrentino: Uh, in 2026, in Ross Common, which is not far from southwest lower Michigan, August, the first equine and eastern equine encephalitis case was broadcast.
• 4:48
  Richard Piet: Right.
• 4:48
  Richard Piet: So uh it is around, and uh it may not be excessively prevalent, but what's your definition of excessive?
• 4:57
  Richard Piet: I guess one could be enough.
• 4:59
  Richard Piet: That's right.
• 5:00
  Richard Piet: So uh let's remind folks if they're looking for a professional to come and assess the treatment potential for mosquitoes on their property, what do you do?
• 5:13
  Richard Piet: What do you usually want to know?
• 5:15
  Richard Piet: And then what are you looking for?
• 5:17
  Tony Sorrentino: We come out and do an on-site evaluation.
• 5:19
  Tony Sorrentino: We're gonna get the lay of the land, so to speak.
• 5:22
  Tony Sorrentino: We're gonna figure out where your harborage areas are because treating for mosquitoes in the middle of an open yard, um, there are separate methodologies that we use.
• 5:31
  Tony Sorrentino: Like if you have a just a bunch of open space and there's really no brush or heavy dense vegetation coverage, that's when we use products like Intucare because the adults are still coming onto your property.
• 5:43
  Tony Sorrentino: Sometimes adult mosquitoes can travel up to two miles in search of a host to take a blood meal from.
• 5:50
  Tony Sorrentino: It's really like a science to it.
• 5:54
  Tony Sorrentino: You gain control by learning what the aggravating factors are in your environment, your immediate environment around your home.
• 6:04
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 6:04
  Richard Piet: We've done an episode, by the way, not all that long ago, on the intricacies of the into care approach.
• 6:11
  Richard Piet: So have a listen or a look for that particular episode and helps you understand how that works.
• 6:18
  Richard Piet: You know, sometimes the problem, I presume, could be in somebody else's yard.
• 6:23
  Richard Piet: You just talked about two miles, right?
• 6:25
  Richard Piet: So someone else could have that uh source in their yard and they're coming to you.
• 6:33
  Richard Piet: And so the treatment in your own yard helps mitigate that, even if they come from somewhere else.
• 6:39
  Tony Sorrentino: All right.
• 6:39
  Tony Sorrentino: Well, reducing the adult population and then doing your part to to get the the standing water and the mosquito breeders out of your your backyard, your neighborhood, it will help to dramatically lower and control.
• 6:53
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, we do whole neighborhoods.
• 6:56
  Tony Sorrentino: There's there's whole neighborhoods where we where it's uh HOA and we go treat everyone's yard to control for uh a greater range.
• 7:06
  Richard Piet: Well, that makes a lot of sense.
• 7:08
  Richard Piet: And I imagine even when it isn't like an HOA sponsored situation, talking to your neighbors about this, you probably run into folks who say, you know, my neighbors and I are interested in this.
• 7:20
  Richard Piet: Yeah, this is uh a pretty important when we talk about mosquito-borne illnesses.
• 7:24
  Richard Piet: We've talked about mosquitoes certainly before, but when you come at it from the eastern equine encephalitis and the West Nile angles, if you have a concern about that, this is just uh added reason to consider the potential for treatment like what PestPros offers to try and uh get around this kind of uh situation.
• 7:46
  Richard Piet: You know, uh is it a situation where uh a lot of water makes a difference, a little bit of water?
• 7:55
  Richard Piet: I mean, we're trying I'm really focusing now on on what attracts, and and that water situation is one of them.
• 8:02
  Tony Sorrentino: Standing water is one form, different species breed in different areas.
• 8:07
  Tony Sorrentino: Like there's um standing water mosquitoes, um, tree tree hole breeders, where they're gonna find those uh those tires, those buckets, those the crook of the elbow of the tree where the water collects.
• 8:21
  Tony Sorrentino: All stages of mosquito life begin in water.
• 8:24
  Richard Piet: So if you have a pond in your yard or there's a brook nearby, I mean, this might be something that elevates the potential for uh more mosquitoes in your yard than maybe.
• 8:36
  Tony Sorrentino: Right.
• 8:36
  Tony Sorrentino: We can't we can't treat moving water because of the propensity.
• 8:41
  Tony Sorrentino: Like there are different methodologies that we use.
• 8:44
  Tony Sorrentino: One is um BTI, it's a Bacillius therangensis israelensis.
• 8:49
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, and that's um easy for you to say.
• 8:51
  Tony Sorrentino: Right.
• 8:52
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, those are the the mosquito dunks or the mosquito bits that we put into your ponds or uh a fish and hole at the back of the yard or or whatever.
• 9:00
  Tony Sorrentino: We've had it where you know that's a that's a major issue, and it's part of the monthly mosquito maintenance program.
• 9:07
  Tony Sorrentino: There's one commercial property that we have that was uh the the all of the workers were getting torn up when they'd go out on breaks.
• 9:15
  Tony Sorrentino: So we put the BTI in there, and it's it's it's there's been a dramatic decrease in mosquito activity at that property, like 80%, where the the people like you're still gonna see them.
• 9:26
  Tony Sorrentino: I can't tell you you're not if somebody tells you you're not gonna see mosquitoes anymore, they're lying to you.
• 9:31
  Richard Piet: Can't eliminate them, but you can sure take a bite out of it.
• 9:34
  Richard Piet: And 80% is a tremendous difference.
• 9:38
  Richard Piet: So when you say dunk into those uh bodies of water, it's uh some kind of an apparatus that sits below the water line.
• 9:47
  Richard Piet: How does that work?
• 9:48
  Tony Sorrentino: Uh the it's either a granular application, there's mosquito bits, and you throw them into the water, it dissolves and it creates a film on top of the water, and it um it's a larvacide.
• 9:59
  Tony Sorrentino: There's dunks made from the same material that are like little donuts.
• 10:03
  Tony Sorrentino: They're about that big and you just huck them in the water.
• 10:06
  Richard Piet: So someone's listening, they're they're concerned about safety, right?
• 10:09
  Richard Piet: Kids, pets, these kinds of things, maybe fishing in uh those bodies of water on their property after you've done this.
• 10:16
  Richard Piet: Talk about uh how that's uh handled.
• 10:19
  Tony Sorrentino: Aaron Powell BTI doesn't pose a threat to humans or pets.
• 10:24
  Tony Sorrentino: It's not safe for for human consumption, but it's not going to hurt fish, wildlife, or aquatic animals.
• 10:30
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 10:30
  Richard Piet: So if mosquito-borne illness is a concern of yours, it's uh certainly worth looking into this option and think about maybe uh having a treatment.
• 10:41
  Richard Piet: You could at least have the Pest Pros of Michigan stop by and give you some perspective on the situation.
• 10:48
  Richard Piet: And Tony and the team are ready to do that.
• 10:51
  Richard Piet: So click through from the show notes, and we'll give you an opportunity to hear from them and see the information on the site.
• 11:00
  Richard Piet: Also, invite you to subscribe.
• 11:02
  Richard Piet: As we mentioned, our Into Care episode and other episodes address this kind of solution and these problems with which you may be dealing when it comes to pest control.
• 11:13
  Richard Piet: So have a listen, have a watch, and we'll be back soon.
• 11:15
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorentino, Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 11:18
  Richard Piet: Thank you.
• 11:18
  Richard Piet: Thanks, Richard.