Locust Swarms Are Getting So Big That We Need Radar To Track Them (medium.com) 56
The desert locust upsurge is yet another of 2020's horrors. From a report: In June, remote sensing analyst Raj Bhagat noticed a strange signal on India's weather radar. It looked like a small band of rain near Delhi, moving southwest, but Bhagat was convinced it was a locust swarm. "People began to report it," he says, referring to sightings on the ground. Giant locust swarms had spread to northern India earlier in the year, ravaging crops and destroying people's livelihoods. "The timelines were perfectly matching." In mid-July, Bhagat, who works at the World Resources Institute India, identified a similar formation, this time near the city of Lucknow. He posted it to Twitter with the hashtag #LocustsAttack. The desert locust upsurge is yet another of 2020's horrors. In dry years, the insects, which can grow up to four inches long and are shades of green, black, or yellow depending on their life stage, remain localized to the deserts of Africa, the Middle East, and southwest Asia. Lately, however, the weather has been wetter than usual. Desert locusts have bred prolifically and migrated in huge swarms to countries that don't always see them in large numbers, including several nations along the horn of Africa. Other places, such as the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, haven't had a locust invasion in decades.
The locust outbreak is currently classed by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as an "upsurge." If the insects begin migrating in large bands -- which could happen within a couple years, should things worsen -- they'll be officially considered a plague. A swarm covering one square kilometer eats as much food as 35,000 people every day. The damage done so far is already appalling. The UN says the food supply of 25 million people in East Africa has been threatened by the insects. In Ethiopia alone, they've destroyed around 200,000 hectares of crops. Meanwhile, in India, the insects have chewed up 50,000 hectares. The recent outbreak may be just a hint of what is to come, thanks to the extreme weather expected as a result of climate change. Such conditions, including periods of excessive rainfall, would be adored by the locusts, says Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer at the FAO. The locusts' wanderlust has sparked efforts to develop tools to closely track the insects. The FAO already uses real-time reports from locust survey teams on the ground and satellite imagery of vegetation and weather events to help forecast how many locusts will breed and where they will go.
Countries use data on locust migrations to determine where to send teams in efforts vanquish the insects en masse by dropping pesticide on them from planes. Among the technologies that could improve locust surveillance by pinpointing locations of multiple swarms at a given moment are radar and drones. The idea of using remote sensing technologies like radar to spy on locust swarms is not new. A 1955 letter in the journal Nature reported the first such sighting on British naval radar the previous year. HMS Wild Goose had detected a humongous 48-kilometer-wide swarm of desert locusts flying over the Persian Gulf. Bhagat says he thinks his sightings are the first weather radar detections of locusts in India, though his observations haven't been confirmed yet. Ryan Neely III, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Leeds in the U.K., is building a specialized system to do the same kind of analysis. It is absolutely possible to use weather radar to spot the insects, he says. They are, after all, not that dissimilar from large raindrops.
The locust outbreak is currently classed by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as an "upsurge." If the insects begin migrating in large bands -- which could happen within a couple years, should things worsen -- they'll be officially considered a plague. A swarm covering one square kilometer eats as much food as 35,000 people every day. The damage done so far is already appalling. The UN says the food supply of 25 million people in East Africa has been threatened by the insects. In Ethiopia alone, they've destroyed around 200,000 hectares of crops. Meanwhile, in India, the insects have chewed up 50,000 hectares. The recent outbreak may be just a hint of what is to come, thanks to the extreme weather expected as a result of climate change. Such conditions, including periods of excessive rainfall, would be adored by the locusts, says Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer at the FAO. The locusts' wanderlust has sparked efforts to develop tools to closely track the insects. The FAO already uses real-time reports from locust survey teams on the ground and satellite imagery of vegetation and weather events to help forecast how many locusts will breed and where they will go.
Countries use data on locust migrations to determine where to send teams in efforts vanquish the insects en masse by dropping pesticide on them from planes. Among the technologies that could improve locust surveillance by pinpointing locations of multiple swarms at a given moment are radar and drones. The idea of using remote sensing technologies like radar to spy on locust swarms is not new. A 1955 letter in the journal Nature reported the first such sighting on British naval radar the previous year. HMS Wild Goose had detected a humongous 48-kilometer-wide swarm of desert locusts flying over the Persian Gulf. Bhagat says he thinks his sightings are the first weather radar detections of locusts in India, though his observations haven't been confirmed yet. Ryan Neely III, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Leeds in the U.K., is building a specialized system to do the same kind of analysis. It is absolutely possible to use weather radar to spot the insects, he says. They are, after all, not that dissimilar from large raindrops.
Surprised we haven't gotten end-times folks (Score:3, Insightful)
2020 is an election year (Score:1)
The End Times are after the election.
Not to spoil it, but the election will be won by
No, no, NO! (Score:3)
That's not how you do that!
You're supposed to say "Not to spoil it, but the election will be won by {#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER"
Re: 2020 is an election year (Score:1)
Won by Spongebob Squarepants?
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The Tangerine Shitgibbon has already made it clear that only right-thinking American patriots will vote for him. Therefore anyone not voting for him is not right thinking, or not an American, or not a patriot. All of these are disqualifying impediments to casting a valid vote. Therefore, there is no need for an election.
QED.
That is where he is going with this - no more elections and the Trump Dynasty is established as a permanent feature, until the Fourth Ameri
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Biblical doom is obsolete, get with the times.
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Probably. Also we are still a few plagues short (don't know how many, I really cannot read that drivel), so it may not appear important enough yet.
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Why end-times? why not a massive flying food source - locust burgers...
Really. Fry a pan of locusts with some garlic and soy sauce, and you have a delicious crunchy snack to munch while watching TV or surfing Slashdot.
Locusts can also be dried and ground into a nutritious and tasty high protein powder. The powder can be added to bread or muffins.
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I was thinking the same, especially the protein source. With these amounts you can feed it to animals. Wouldn't privatize it though or before you know it they start to nurture them.
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The end times, if you're a bible thumper, are to last a thousand years. We've been in the midst of them for, depending on who you ask, anywhere from two decades to two hundred and some years. So we got a ways to go.
If you hunt around you can find evidence of blood rivers and other "signs," so there's all sorts of fanciful storytelling to be had if you're willing to do the research.
Me, I'm just over here rocking Metallica's four horsemen and checking the boxes.
Just remember (Score:5, Funny)
God is in charge of plagues, floods, and pestilence.
Satan is in charge of orgies and heavy metal bands.
Re:Just remember (Score:5, Funny)
And, again, I see my choice of being an Atheist validated.
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What's wrong with orgies?
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What's wrong with orgies?
Nothing. Duh.
Atheists don't believe in Satan either....
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What's wrong with orgies?
Just make sure you wear a Covid mask.
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What's wrong with orgies?
Sounds stressful to me. Also, the morning after?
Big Whoop-de-do (Score:5, Informative)
In 1875, the Rocky Mountain Locust swarmed overhead for 5 days, blotting out the Sun. The swarm was the size of Colorado and Wyoming combined, estimated at 12.5 trillion insects.
The death of the Super Hopper [hcn.org]
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Interesting, if slow. I never knew there were plagues of locusts in the USA.
Lockwood proposes that the plagues suddenly stopped because farming disrupted their habitat when they were not plaguing.
I wonder if the old world locusts could be controlled in a similar manner.
Wait for it ... (Score:1, Troll)
3... 2... 1... "Oh!!! This is caused by global climate change!!!! The fact that it happened in biblical times is proof!!!!!!!!!!!!"
One man's stupid idea is another's moneymaker (Score:1)
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No, that's what the 5G's for... also useful for those pesky protestors...
Eat them ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The solution is to eat them ...
The locusts are already eaten in some countries. For example the chapulines in Mexico, and walang in Indonesia.
It is also Halal and Kosher at the same time, being historically eaten in the Middle East. It would not be much different from shrimp, but with less meat ...
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Sushi got a lucky break by passing as "trendy", adoption of insect eating is simply going to take longer. Some of that has genuine intrinsic causes; there seems to be an instinctive aversion to eating the heads of things, for instance. Abstraction is harder (turning stuff that's visibly an organism into appearances more simple/uniform) though at least things like flour are simple enough. They did a piece over at Ars, covering some of the psychology, can't be assed to find it.
Point is it ain't here yet and c
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That is not true globally. Only in certain cultures is this aversion present. For example, fish is eaten as fillets, but if you go to the Mediterranean (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, ...etc.), fish are usually served hole with the head and eyes. No problems at all.
The head of ruminants is considered a delicacy in many cultures. The eyes are given to the guest of honour in
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How do you catch umpteen billion locusts? And then preserve the result?
Nets might help, but the swarms move quite fast.
I suspect they do eat a few kgs of them, but that is hardly going to have much impact.
Re: Eat them ... (Score:2)
The answer would be to eat them before they go full plague. This would have the side benefit of managing their population so as to keep their numbers down. Course, that presents the difficulty of collecting them In sufficient number from where they live prior to going plague.
Re:Eat them ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It might also help, if we say that they are rare and endangered species.
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my guess is if you throw a net on them the top layer quickly weighs down on the locusts below and pretty quickly the whole column falls like a brick.
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For these giant clusters: Sonic explosions from fireworks apparatus, remotely triggered. Focused air horns. Not sure there is any type of shrapnel that could be spread effectively. Drop some kind of sticky liquid that sticks to their wings. Drones that emit smells or sounds that confuse them and cause them to change course. Flame throwers pointing skyward.
None of these things will eradicate them. It would be a war of attrition, with radar, etc. allowing devices to be positioned.
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String a net between two poles attached to a pickup truck.
Drive through the swarm.
Men with brooms brush the locust into containers looking like old milk jugs.
Container are dropped off at a facility that sucks the air out of the containers to dry and preserve the locusts.
The locust can be washed and then ground into flour as needed.
Serving != eating (Score:1)
Sure they serve fish whole, but nobody eats the head. They're mostly bone or cartilage anyway.
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Depends.
In the Mediterranean, small fish (similar to smelts) are fried whole, and eaten whole (head and all).
Larger fish have some parts of the head that are edible. If the fish is grilled or roasted, the eyes are delicious and all gooey. The cheeks are also very very good meat (not a whole lot, but enough to enjoy a bite. I also used to eat the brains, which is also a delicacy.
Same goes for sheep and cow heads in
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Horsepucky. I'd bet that the grandmothers of most of the older posters here used to make fish head soup, mine did. It's also very popular in much of Latin America and Asia.
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there seems to be an instinctive aversion to eating the heads of things
Nonsense, pretty much every culture has its version of head cheese. Sheep head soup is popular throughout Latin America (and delicious). My younger nieces and nephews in Peru fight about who gets the guinea pig's head and neck. Mashed potatoes with beef tongue is one of the things that I ask for for my birthday dinner (the other being duck with mashed potatoes). Cow nose soup is tasteless and chewy, but I've eaten a lot of it as it's a staple in cheap restaurants. The crunchy ears are the best part of a
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I've had cooked crickets. I'd imagine it's not much different. Either fried or with the right type of seasoning, they aren't bad.
High fiber, good protein. Probably healthier than 95% of what we eat in America.
Locusts are edible? (Score:1)
Locusts are edible, aren't they? Maybe we should get over it and figure out how to havest and store the foodstuffs and not spray poison on it.
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As a food source they'd be even more inefficient than beef. An individual locust has lots of fat and protein, but at best you're only get a few percent of the swarm that has devastated your farm and the vast majority is going to escape. In absolutely no case are you going to capture as many calories or as much nutrition as your field would have produced normally. If your farm is based on perennials like fruit trees they'll tear the shit out of an orchard and most of your trees will take years to recover
Gene Drive? (Score:3)
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So big we need radar? (Score:2)
Then they must not be very big. If they were really big we could see them and track them visually.
No...Locus swarms are getting so big (Score:2)
Munchies (Score:2)
Eat the locasts (Score:1)
Also in South America (Score:2)
Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay also have huge swarms of grasshoppers right now, they estimate hundreds of millions of individuals in some of them.
https://www.canalrural.com.br/... [canalrural.com.br]
We need to be sure (Score:2)
I say we dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure [we get them all].