Maro
03-17-2004, 10:17 PM
Here you go Tim - a story of Biblical proprtions about insects:
Voracious insects have spread across an area twice the size of England
A PLAGUE of locusts sweeping through eastern Australia has devastated an area twice the size of England.
The infestation has been stoked by the arrival of rains after two years of drought, providing ideal breeding conditions for billions of the insects.
Old-timers in the Outback may have seen it all before, but to Phil Hunter, 33, whose pasture has been devoured by the locusts, it is a new experience and little short of a disaster. “This is as bad as I have seen it and it’s killing everything,” he said.
Afflicted areas lay buried beneath a thick carpet of insects. Drivers had to stop to clear their windscreens and unblock air vents so that their vehicles did not overheat.
John Farr, the Mayor of Cabonne Shire, an area of New South Wales, said that the swarming insects there were as “thick as the hairs on your dog’s back”.
And things are getting worse.
Another farmer, Joe Davis, predicted that it would not be long before clouds of insects obscured all sunlight.
“In a few days we will see locusts that will black out the sun,” he said. “There won’t be a green thing; they’ll even eat the clothes off the washing line.”
Locusts began to breed in northeastern Australia in late February and quickly migrated south to feed on newly planted crops of oats and alfafa. Charts produced by the federal Agriculture Department show how the insects have afflicted tracts of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales that are twice the size of England.
The insects, which have swarmed southwards on a 745-mile front from southwest Queensland to the central New South Wales town of Dubbo, can fly up to 300 miles in one night, given favourable wind conditions.
Another farmer described the arrival of the locusts on his property, 340 miles west of Sydney. “A thick haze of them came through over the weekend and chomped their way through our crops overnight,” Bev Dennis said.
The oats eaten by the locusts had been intended for lambs, which have struggled for two years with little green grass to eat, after the lowest rainfall for a century.
“I just kept on thinking it’s got to get better, but now we’ve got this,” Mr Dennis said.
The plague is expected to cost farmers millions of pounds in lost crops. Concern is mounting that the insects will spread to other parts of the country.
Warren Truss, the Agriculture Minister, said: “Given the fact that adult locusts can migrate over such long distances, the potential exists over the next few weeks for plague locusts to move into many new areas.”
The threat is made worse because in urban areas such as Dubbo, the largest city in central New South Wales, the spraying of insecticides is prohibited owing to the risk to human beings.
Another concern is that the insects are laying billions more eggs as they move across the country.
If temperatures remain high, they are expected to hatch within the next few weeks, sustaining and increasing the size of the vast swarms. Either that, or, as the southern winter approaches, they could lie dormant for several months and create another destructive plague later this year.
ANATOMY OF AN INSECT PLAGUE
# Since 1933 there have been 12 locust plagues (when insects covered more than 1.2 million acres) in eastern Australia
# Males grow up to 30mm (more than 1in) long; females 42mm
# Swarms have reached almost 4,000ft
# In 250 acres, 50 million insects can eat 10 tonnes of vegetation a day
# The Australian plague locust is edible and rich in protein. Stir-frying is recommended
# John the Baptist survived in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey
Voracious insects have spread across an area twice the size of England
A PLAGUE of locusts sweeping through eastern Australia has devastated an area twice the size of England.
The infestation has been stoked by the arrival of rains after two years of drought, providing ideal breeding conditions for billions of the insects.
Old-timers in the Outback may have seen it all before, but to Phil Hunter, 33, whose pasture has been devoured by the locusts, it is a new experience and little short of a disaster. “This is as bad as I have seen it and it’s killing everything,” he said.
Afflicted areas lay buried beneath a thick carpet of insects. Drivers had to stop to clear their windscreens and unblock air vents so that their vehicles did not overheat.
John Farr, the Mayor of Cabonne Shire, an area of New South Wales, said that the swarming insects there were as “thick as the hairs on your dog’s back”.
And things are getting worse.
Another farmer, Joe Davis, predicted that it would not be long before clouds of insects obscured all sunlight.
“In a few days we will see locusts that will black out the sun,” he said. “There won’t be a green thing; they’ll even eat the clothes off the washing line.”
Locusts began to breed in northeastern Australia in late February and quickly migrated south to feed on newly planted crops of oats and alfafa. Charts produced by the federal Agriculture Department show how the insects have afflicted tracts of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales that are twice the size of England.
The insects, which have swarmed southwards on a 745-mile front from southwest Queensland to the central New South Wales town of Dubbo, can fly up to 300 miles in one night, given favourable wind conditions.
Another farmer described the arrival of the locusts on his property, 340 miles west of Sydney. “A thick haze of them came through over the weekend and chomped their way through our crops overnight,” Bev Dennis said.
The oats eaten by the locusts had been intended for lambs, which have struggled for two years with little green grass to eat, after the lowest rainfall for a century.
“I just kept on thinking it’s got to get better, but now we’ve got this,” Mr Dennis said.
The plague is expected to cost farmers millions of pounds in lost crops. Concern is mounting that the insects will spread to other parts of the country.
Warren Truss, the Agriculture Minister, said: “Given the fact that adult locusts can migrate over such long distances, the potential exists over the next few weeks for plague locusts to move into many new areas.”
The threat is made worse because in urban areas such as Dubbo, the largest city in central New South Wales, the spraying of insecticides is prohibited owing to the risk to human beings.
Another concern is that the insects are laying billions more eggs as they move across the country.
If temperatures remain high, they are expected to hatch within the next few weeks, sustaining and increasing the size of the vast swarms. Either that, or, as the southern winter approaches, they could lie dormant for several months and create another destructive plague later this year.
ANATOMY OF AN INSECT PLAGUE
# Since 1933 there have been 12 locust plagues (when insects covered more than 1.2 million acres) in eastern Australia
# Males grow up to 30mm (more than 1in) long; females 42mm
# Swarms have reached almost 4,000ft
# In 250 acres, 50 million insects can eat 10 tonnes of vegetation a day
# The Australian plague locust is edible and rich in protein. Stir-frying is recommended
# John the Baptist survived in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey