Sterile Insect Release program to use drones
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The Okanagan-Kootenay Sterile Insect Release Program (SIR) is taking off…literally.
“This is the first year we will be using drones in specified areas to release the moths. It sounds like a much more efficient way to release the moths,” Armstrong Coun. Shirley Fowler, who is a board member of S.I.R., told North Okanagan Regional District politicians.
Specially-equiped four-wheel ATV’s have been used as the main delivery method for the moths since the program started in 1992.
Sterile insect technology (SIT) was developed in the 1930’s and first applied to control screw worm pests in 1953. Described as “birth control for insects,” the technology works by pairing sterile male insects with wild female insects so that the females are unable to produce viable offspring.
