Western states battle invasion of bugs
Mormon crickets can destroy crops, even slicken roads
FILE - In this June 10, 2003, file photo, Jeff Knight, an entomologist with the Nevada Department of Agriculture, holds a female Mormon cricket north of Reno, Nev. Farmers in the U.S. West face a creepy scourge every eight years or so: Swarms of ravenous insects that can decimate crops and cause slippery, bug-slick car crashes as they march across highways and roads. The 2017 swarms are affecting Idaho, Oregon, and other Western states. (AP Photo/Debra Reid, File)
FILE - In this June 12, 2003, file photo, a Mormon cricket feasts on a dead cricket killed by a car on a rural road north of Reno, Nev. Farmers in the U.S. West face a creepy scourge every eight years or so: Swarms of ravenous insects that can decimate crops and cause slippery, bug-slick car crashes as they march across highways and roads. The 2017 swarms are affecting Idaho, Oregon, and other Western states. (AP Photo/Debra Reid, File)
A Mormon cricket crosses Pyramid Highway north of Sparks, Nev. Associated Press files
By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press
Published: July 14, 2017, 10:16 PM
BOISE, Idaho — Farmers in the U.S. West face a creepy scourge every eight years or so: Swarms of ravenous insects that can decimate crops and cause slippery, bug-slick car crashes as they march across highways and roads.
Experts say this year could be a banner one for Mormon crickets — 3-inch-long bugs named after the Mormon pioneers who moved West and learned firsthand the insect’s devastating effect on forage and grain fields.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service reports “significantly higher Mormon cricket populations” on federal land in southwestern Idaho, agency spokeswoman Abbey Powell wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
“There isn’t a clear explanation why populations are so much higher this year,” Powell wrote. “We know that populations are cyclical. … In Idaho, in a few locations, we have seen populations as high as 70 per square yard.”
The bugs can start to be detrimental to rangeland and crops when they number about 8 per square yard, state officials said.
The federal agency says the bugs– actually katydids, an entomological cousin to grasshoppers — are stretched in a band across southwestern Idaho, concentrated around Winnemucca, Nev.; and sprinkled throughout Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona and Colorado.
Residents in the north-central Oregon town of Arlington started dealing with Mormon crickets in June, scrambling to protect gardens and farm crops and trying to keep the bugs from invading homes through open windows and doors.
Out-of-control swarms can mean big economic losses for states. In 2003, some counties in Idaho and Nevada were forced to declare states of emergency because of cricket-caused damage. Estimates of crop damage in Utah reached more than $25 million in 2001.
Police and transportation workers also keep an eye on invasions. The bugs are juicy when squished, and when swarms cross the road, they can make the pavement as slick as ice.
Idaho State Police Lt. Col. Sheldon Kelley has responded to wrecks and slide-offs caused by the bug slicks.
“Most people don’t know they are coming” until their car is almost on top of the swarm, he said.
Drivers who see pavement that looks like it is moving should slow down and drive as if they are on icy roads, he said. Police work with transportation officials to post warnings and, if necessary, sand roads fouled by cricket carcasses.
Lloyd Knight, a division administrator with the Idaho Department of Agriculture, said he hoped last winter’s snowstorms would naturally limit their numbers. Female crickets can lay up to 100 eggs each summer, which hatch the following spring.
As it turns out, the deep snow cover helped insulate and protect the eggs, he said.