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April 13, 2000
Remember the swarm of bugs that invaded Utah last year?
Well guess what?
They're back!
Farmers and homeowners in Tooele County are bracing for a fierce invasion of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets.
News Specialist Jed Boal has the forecast from Tooele.
One of the buggiest years ever.
Last year, grasshoppers and Mormon crickets were a plague in this area.
They came munching through fields, complete devastation in their path.
And this year, they'll be worse.
The Mormon cricket crusade is on in Tooele County.
Billions of them are starting to feed on fields.
In a month or so, their close relatives--the grasshoppers--will hatch and wreak havoc on homes in neighborhoods.
After a close look, farming and bug specialists say they'll be a menace.
Last year, the crickets and grasshoppers infested 800,000 acres statewide.
This year, entomologists think they'll eat their way through 1.3 million acres.
Brad Case and his family tried without success to fend off the fiendish grasshoppers, but they were everywhere.
There was little state money to help and federal money arrived in July.
This year, the extension service says, they'll help residents start the battle early.
This year the state will kick in more money, and people can also pick up an emergency kit at county extension offices.
But the bugs simply come in cycles, and right now we're at the peak of a wave we haven't seen in 15 years.
