This “Biblical” Insect Is Spreading Like Wildfire – IOTW Report

This “Biblical” Insect Is Spreading Like Wildfire

The Biblical snake has been spreading for decades in the form of left-wing politicians. Now it’s these insect’s turn.

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 Driving down a windy canyon road in northern Oregon rangeland, Jordan Maley and April Aamodt are on the look out for Mormon crickets, giant insects that can ravage crops.

“There’s one right there,” Aamodt says.

They’re not hard to spot. The insects, which can grow larger than 2 inches (5 centimeters), blot the asphalt.

Mormon crickets are not new to Oregon. Native to western North America, their name dates back to the 1800s, when they ruined the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah. But amidst drought and warming temperatures — conditions favored by the insects — outbreaks across the West have worsened.

The Oregon Legislature last year allocated $5 million to assess the problem and set up a Mormon cricket and grasshopper “suppression” program. An additional $1.2 million for the program was approved earlier this month.

It’s part of a larger effort by state and federal authorities in the U.S. West to deal with an explosion of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets that has hit from Montana to Nevada. But some environmental groups oppose the programs, which rely on the aerial spraying of pesticides across large swaths of land.

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12 Comments on This “Biblical” Insect Is Spreading Like Wildfire

  1. I thought it was coyotes who ate small house pets. Some years ago on Spokane’s S. hill in a hoity toity, heavily wooded neighborhood a lot of small dogs and plenty of cats went missing until they found a coyote den (urban coyotes) lined with pet fur in their neighborhood. They quickly eradicated the coyotes, problem solved. The only thing worse than Mormon crickets would be Jehovah’s crickets coming to your door and you can’t get rid of these pests. My mom would always make us lie when we were kids if the Jehovah’s Witnesses came to our door, she wouldn’t answer the door and made us fib to get rid of them.

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