Insect Infestation May Be Decreasing in Nevada

Experts see signs that the infestation of Mormon crickets that has plagued Nevada for six straight years, with swarms stretching across millions of acres, may decrease this summer.

The insects, which got their name after nearly destroying the crops of Utah’s Mormon settlers in 1848, infested about 12 million acres in Nevada last year, roughly the same acreage infested in 2004. That made last year the first since 2000 that the acreage didn’t substantially increase.

The population of the insect, which is not really a cricket but a shieldbacked katydid, a grasshopper-like insect, decreased 50% in Idaho and as much as 95% in Utah last summer, said Nevada state entomologist Jeff Knight.