Millions of Mormon crickets are blanketing a Nevada town | CBC Radio

Charles Carmichael tries not to answer work calls on Sundays. But residents of Elko, Nev., have desperately needed his services, as lawns, roads and homes are covered in millions of creepy, crawly bugs known as Mormon crickets.

“It is basically like that movie [The] Birds, but instead of birds, it’s crickets,” Carmichael, the owner of Battle Born Pest Control, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“I’m getting probably six to seven calls a day. I’ve been working every night until 7:30, 8:00 at night, you know, until I just can’t go anymore.”

A wave of the flightless insects, which are technically not crickets but shield-backed katydids, have descended on the city with a population of about 20,000 people. Carmichael estimates the crickets have them outnumbered by about “75 to one.”

The bugs earned their moniker when members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first encountered them in the mid-1800s. Washington State University told the New York Times that they were dubbed crickets because of their chirping noise.

They aren’t the tiniest critters: Carmichael estimates they’re “about the size of a grown man’s thumb … maybe like, Shaquille O’Neal’s thumb.”

Their large size at least means they probably won’t squeeze into residents’ homes through cracks in the wall. But they can still make it inside through crawl spaces, air vents and ducts, or by hitching a ride on someone’s clothing.

“They’ll crawl on you and you don’t even know that they’re on you, and you come in the house,” Carmichael said.

He said the best way to deal with them is lure them away from homes in the first place with poisoned bait. But once they’re knocking on your door, so to speak, there’s not much you can do except spray them with bug repellant.

Photos and videos on social media show hordes of the bugs darkening highways, lawns and even walls of homes in the area. Carmichael says he’s seen the bugs leap off of the walls “for no apparent reason” and onto unsuspecting residents.

“I’ve seen kids … scream bloody murder because they’re terrified to get out of the car,” he said.

Carmichael says they’re not poisonous or otherwise dangerous to humans, but they can pose serious damage to agriculture or people’s homes, lawns and gardens.

“They’ll definitely chew your grass down to the nub,” he warned. “I’ve seen them chew paint off … the wood siding on the house.”

Cricket carcasses gum up highways

Another big worry is the roads. As cars drive over the unsuspecting crickets, their guts are splattered across the pavement. The resulting slick film can make it more difficult for vehicles to find traction.

And it gets worse.

“The worst part about these crickets is that they’re cannibals,” said Carmichael. “When you’ve got hot, dead crickets on the highway, crickets are going to eat those dead bodies which are then getting squished. And it’s just a cascade effect.”

Nevada entomologist Jeff Knight told the Guardian that recent rainfalls have made the roads even more slippery, leading to “a number of accidents caused by crickets.”

Knight added that a recent drought in the area likely sparked the recent hatchings, and that they usually migrate to find more space.

“[Population density] is what triggers them to say, ‘There’s too many of us here, we’ve got to start moving,'” he told the Guardian.

State and federal authorities in the western U.S. have spent millions to deal with the crickets over the years. In 2022, Oregon’s legislature allocated $5 million US to set up a Mormon cricket and grasshopper “suppression” program, according to The Associated Press.

Carmichael says while the crickets go on the move every year, they don’t always reach cities or towns, and so don’t make it in to the press very often.

He added that Nevada’s Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Land Management lay bait out to hopefully lure them away from the state’s most populated areas.

Now that they’re up in Elko’s business, though, Carmichael says they’ll likely remain a regular feature until August of this year and come back each summer for at least five years.

For now, Carmichael says his home has remained out of the path of the army of insects.

“My wife has already told me if that happens, she’s not leaving the house for nothing,” he said.

“My wife can’t stand them. It bugs her out something fierce.”