in Northwest Colorado hungry bands of
Mormon crickets are on the move but so
too is the USDA’s crack team of cricket
catchers they are Greg sword a research
ecologist who spent over a decade
studying these insects Laura senior a
botanist by trade recruited as a bug
technician for this mission and Patrick
Lorch a biologist with a knack for
attracting crickets these experts are
out here trying to get up close and
personal with one of the worst skur jizz
in the West the Mormon cricket has
become notorious for its destructive
invasions with this mini jumping around
it’s not a job for the faint of heart
they sneak up on you too like they might
crawl up your pant leg and you don’t
feel it until they get all the way up to
your neck and then there they’re really
big juicy insects so you kind of have to
fight the urge to slap them or you’ll
get a whole bunch of juicy guts all over
your neck you got to watch out for that
miles of highway and millions of acres
and a half dozen states have been
blanketed by thick bands of big black
insects although they are known as
crickets these insects are actually
katydids not true crickets they don’t
fly that can hop and crawl as much as a
mile in a day eating anything and
everything it’s pretty intense and you I
even if you like insects you would not
want to sit down in the middle of that
now Laura Greg and Patrick are trying to
find a way to stay a step ahead of the
crickets they want to discover secrets
about their behavior so they are now
bugging the bugs they’re gluing tiny
radio transmitters onto the backs of a
few lucky candidates then they follow
the crickets across Colorado’s rugged
rangeland oh I see it it’s right in this
bush she is good job the crickets that
have been tagged are tracked and then
recaptured their way to see how well
they’re doing and then sent on their way
the idea Greg says is to get a fix on
where bands of crickets move how fast
and why once we’ve done that we can
develop models mathematical models that
we can use to then predict for other
bands in other parts of the western US
you know potentially our ultimate goal
is to help people and that’s what we all
like to do historically Mormon cricket
infestations are bad for about three
years in every decade Greg sword
certainly isn’t complaining ronger up
here I like it quite a bit for me it’s
hard to imagine that I actually have a
job where I get to work outside and
chase in sexors they run around in
sagebrush it’s I love it
Mormon crickets are on the move but so
too is the USDA’s crack team of cricket
catchers they are Greg sword a research
ecologist who spent over a decade
studying these insects Laura senior a
botanist by trade recruited as a bug
technician for this mission and Patrick
Lorch a biologist with a knack for
attracting crickets these experts are
out here trying to get up close and
personal with one of the worst skur jizz
in the West the Mormon cricket has
become notorious for its destructive
invasions with this mini jumping around
it’s not a job for the faint of heart
they sneak up on you too like they might
crawl up your pant leg and you don’t
feel it until they get all the way up to
your neck and then there they’re really
big juicy insects so you kind of have to
fight the urge to slap them or you’ll
get a whole bunch of juicy guts all over
your neck you got to watch out for that
miles of highway and millions of acres
and a half dozen states have been
blanketed by thick bands of big black
insects although they are known as
crickets these insects are actually
katydids not true crickets they don’t
fly that can hop and crawl as much as a
mile in a day eating anything and
everything it’s pretty intense and you I
even if you like insects you would not
want to sit down in the middle of that
now Laura Greg and Patrick are trying to
find a way to stay a step ahead of the
crickets they want to discover secrets
about their behavior so they are now
bugging the bugs they’re gluing tiny
radio transmitters onto the backs of a
few lucky candidates then they follow
the crickets across Colorado’s rugged
rangeland oh I see it it’s right in this
bush she is good job the crickets that
have been tagged are tracked and then
recaptured their way to see how well
they’re doing and then sent on their way
the idea Greg says is to get a fix on
where bands of crickets move how fast
and why once we’ve done that we can
develop models mathematical models that
we can use to then predict for other
bands in other parts of the western US
you know potentially our ultimate goal
is to help people and that’s what we all
like to do historically Mormon cricket
infestations are bad for about three
years in every decade Greg sword
certainly isn’t complaining ronger up
here I like it quite a bit for me it’s
hard to imagine that I actually have a
job where I get to work outside and
chase in sexors they run around in
sagebrush it’s I love it
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