Mormon crickets make their way across a road in Spring Creek, Nev.
PALOMINO VALLEY, Nev., June 13 — Swarms of Mormon crickets are marching across the West, destroying rangeland and crops, slickening highways with their carcasses and leaving disgusted residents in their wake.
“IT’S YUCKY,” said Amy Nisbet of Elko in northeast Nevada, where this year crickets made their first appearance in recent memory. “You drive down the street and they pop like bubble wrap.”
Mild winters and three years of drought have provided ideal conditions for the insects, which hatch in the spring and feed through the summer. Experts say this year’s infestation in Nevada, Utah and Idaho could be the worst in decades.
Five million acres are infested in Nevada with the 2½-inch long creeping insects, said Jeff Knight, entomologist with the Nevada Department of Agriculture.
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