Natural Resource News Note
It was just two weeks ago that the Seattle Post reported a serious invasion of grasshoppers. Here is what they said “The Pacific Northwest must prepare for the worst grasshopper outbreak in 30 years, according to scientists for Washington State University and the USDA….”In some areas there will indeed be masses,” said Richard Zack, an entomologist at WSU. “Not biblical proportions, but big masses of grasshoppers moving through areas.” (see full story here [5])
Now it the coming invasion has been called off. You can thank the recent rain downpour for the answer which put some areas in Oregon as twice the normal rainfall.
The entomologists who warned about the future swarms gave a more relaxed note to Oregon Public Broadcasting saying that the rain had perfect timing by hitting when grasshoppers are hatching, “The wet cold provides them with a lot of diseases, with a lot of fungus, et cetera, and that tends to knock numbers down. And that’ll work with grasshoppers, with yellowjackets, with wasps.” (More OPB here [6])