Millions Of ‘Mormon Crickets’ Are Swarming Idaho

The technical name for these big, ugly looking crickets is Shield-Backed Katydids but most people refer to them as 'Mormon Crickets' because they swarmed and attacked the Salt Lake City area way back in the pioneer days and were eventually eaten up and eradicated by seagulls which, happens to be the Utah State Bird now.

Unfortunately, these little suckers are back and now it's Idaho they're attacking.  And we don't have any seagulls around so this is becoming a bit of a problem.

I came across this article on KSL which reports that MILLIONS of these crickets are hitting southeast Idaho towns and just completely taking over.  Families are coming home to see nothing but black all over their driveways, their doors, and their houses.  Some families have pretty much barricaded themselves inside for the past two days hoping these things will just move on but they haven't.

These crickets typically like drought condition areas which make no sense because we've had nothing but rain through most of the Spring.

Fortunately, farmers haven't been hit yet and hopefully, we can keep it that way.  Crickets are known to completely destroy crops in a matter of hours and when you pack in millions upon millions of them, it doesn't take long.

A lot of people have been using insecticide which is definitely helping.  It leaves a big mess behind but it is killing off a lot of the insects.  How long this will last and how bad this will get is unknown at this time.  It's starting to look like things are headed in the right direction.  Let's hope it keeps on going that way.