Mormon crickets chew through Idaho
Worst outbreak since World War II
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Mormon Crickets threaten crops, but they're not crickets -- they're actually katydids.
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BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Mormon crickets are chewing their way through southwestern Idaho at an alarming rate, devouring crops and creating road hazards in what locals say is the worst outbreak since World War II.
The Boise County Commission has already declared a disaster and the state has posted warning signs on roads for the pests. Crickets smashed by cars on the road surface create a mush slicker than black ice.
"Their guts and stuff, they just get mashed," said Mike Cooper, a state Department of Agriculture official who persuaded the state last week to authorize $250,000 in cricket control measures.
The insects got their name after invading the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah in 1848. They're not actually crickets -- rather a species of shieldbacked katydid that belong to a grasshopper family.
Their voracious appetites take in anything. At a density of just one insect per square yard, they can consume 38 pounds of forage per acre as they pass through an area. They will even eat each other.
The bugs are dense enough to cause a hazard on roadways.
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Once on the move, their mobility makes them harder to kill, because they can travel a mile in a day and up to 50 miles in a season.
At the end of their 60- to 90-day life cycle, they lay eggs that incubate through the winter, then hatch in the spring.
"Right now they're just kind of grazing. In two weeks, they'll just start gorging, and they'll devastate anything that's green," said Fawn Carey, disaster services coordinator for Boise County in Horseshoe Bend.
Locals say the infestation rivals one that came just before World War II. The outbreak led to tales of crickets devouring gardens in downtown Boise, and homeowners putting sheet metal around their yards to try to keep the crickets out.
Mormon crickets have also invaded northeast Nevada this year, prompting a disaster declaration in Elko County.
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
