n These crickets and
in front of them
story is legendary in Utah: In 1848, as starving Mormon pioneers
were about to harvest their first full year's crops in the dusty
Salt Lake Valley, hordes of grasshoppers marched through the
fields, devouring every living thing.
all appeared lost, great flocks of seagulls arrived, noisily
settled into the half-eaten fields, and began feasting on the
grasshoppers. All day they gorged, regurgitated, and gorged again.
The crops were saved. The California gull is now the Utah state
bird and its saving flight is commemorated in a statue on the
Mormon Church's Temple Square.
grasshoppers became popularly known as Mormon crickets, and this
summer they're back. Last year, Mormon crickets infested more than
a half million acres of Utah land. This summer's infestation is
expected to be worse.
"In a field of alfalfa, the
population can be so high all you can see is black," says Utah
state entomologist Ed Bianco. "You'd have a hard time seeing
Paved roads covered with
smashed crickets can become so slick that cars slide off. Cricket
swarms passing over dirt roads leave their mark behind - two red
gut stripes where tires rolled over the
Last summer, some enterprising Utah
farmers hoped to save their crops by putting turkeys out to eat
approaching Mormon crickets. The crickets ate the feathers off the
turkeys. In some rural communities in Tooele County west of Salt
Lake City, houses were covered with crickets, forcing residents to
"They'll eat most anything in front
of them," Bianco says, calling this summer's infestation the worst
since the early 1980s.
And there's more than Mormon crickets
Coupled with the Mormon cricket march,
other grasshopper populations are also exploding in the desert
valleys west of Salt Lake.
"They ate the stucco
off my neighbor's house," Karrie Palmer of Tooele says. "Last year,
they covered the house and ate anything that was green. They ate
the garden, all the leaves off the trees, and even the lawn. If
you'd step on the lawn, it would just move. We were afraid to go
In Skull Valley in west-central Utah,
grasshoppers have already wiped out ranchers' alfalfa
"During the last hopper infestation in
1985, I got 10 tons of hay out of a field where I normally get 300
tons," rancher Dennis Andrus says.
Valley neighbor, Rita Evans, says grasshoppers ate her 40 acres of
alfalfa "... right down to the dirt."
ranchers and farmers can spread bait for the crickets, poisoning
grain in a line ahead of the approaching swarm, but say they also
need aerial spraying to keep the grasshoppers at bay. Since both
insects lay their eggs on the vast tracts of public lands which
border each irrigated valley, ranchers want the federal government
to poison the insects on its land. According to entomologist Ed
Bianco at the Utah Department of Agriculture, the poison has not
had any effect on other wildlife, including the California
"The source is Forest Service land," Utah
State University Extension agent Justen Smith explains. "By the
time they get to the private crop lands, it's too late. Baiting
should have started in April on the forest land."
Utah's congressional delegation is seeking
emergency federal funding to get aerial spraying and ground baiting
programs under way, but it's probably too late. While Utah's state
Department of Agriculture is kicking in emergency funds to help
ranchers buy cricket bait, little can be done about the other
But maybe history is repeating
itself. In late May, with grasshoppers hatching and Mormon crickets
just miles away, Dennis and Shirley Andrus' ranch came alive with
the screech and squawk of thousands of seagulls. They settled so
thickly on the Andrus' pond there was no more room for them to
"It's really amazing," Andrus marvels.
"There'll be a big group of them circling high in the sky round and
round and then after awhile they'll come in and another flock will
go out, back and forth, back and forth."
then, the Lord sent the birds," neighbor Rita Evans recalls of the
1848 seagull rescue, "and I think He did it again."
While Tooele County agent Justen Smith is
grateful for the unexpected help, he still pleads for emergency
"We can't depend on the
seagulls," he says. Rancher Andrus agrees. "Nature sent the Air
Force all right, but now we need money for our own airplanes."
Larry Warren reports on
the environment for KUTV News in Salt Lake
You can contact
* The USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection
Service, Greg Abbott, 435/896-4772;
Department of Agriculture, Larry Lewis,