No it's not about crickets - it's about locusts. Billions of locusts are on the march around the world. In Russia a swarm has destroyed 30,000 acres of wheat and in Utah an agricultural emergency has been declared after 'Mormon Crickets' caused $25 million of damage to crops.

In China hundreds of thousands of ducks are being flown to the north west of the country to combat the threat. Apparently they can eat 2kg of locusts a day. The ducks have been specially trained by government handlers to eat locusts.

This leads me to two thoughts. Will the import of ducks in China end the same way as the import of Giant Cane toads in Australia. They imported toads to eat harmful insects in the sugar cane fields. Unfortunately the toads didn't eat those insects but they really liked some of the insects that are beneficial (bees etc). Now they have a plague of cane toads. Just imagine a plague of giant ducks. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...es/biggrin.gif

Secondly, will the fattening up of all these ducks bring the price of crispy duck down in my local chinese restaurant?

Are locusts common in the US?

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Save Chip - Don't let Sarah win!
Official Titterer of the Laughing Hyenas

LOL! Thats what we get when tampering with nature! hehe, we had a kind of or rather still has, a snail that is called the killer snake that eat everything except the plants we don´t want to have. So alot of people bought alot of ducks that ate these snails in their home envirionment. Problem though was that the poor ducksies didn´t have much other snails too eat back there so now they have a great dinner on alot more yummy snails and other things and don´t care about the killersnails!

Look at the problem in Australia with wabbits! No Dingo alot of wabbits, dingos fewer wabbits!

Dont tamper to much with nature, it will sort things out sooner or later. If we do it to quick things don´t sort out that well.
Mankind hasn´t done that many good tamperings in nature sofar, hopefully we will be able to at least fix some of the things we stirred up though! Hmm, a whole country with wabbits and crocs eh? (OK, kidding alittle with the Australians here! Like most people thinks that we have polarbears running around here! hehe!) Wabbits! Hmm, can a wolf learn how to surf??

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Yawning lazywolf dreaming about nice little fairies...zzzzz

This summer in northern Minnesota we've been plagued with Army worms... millions and billions of little dark skinny furry worms that drop from trees onto you, that coat a building so it looks like it's moving, that leave the pavement looking like someone decided to decorate it with polka dots ~ all this while denuding the surrounding trees of their foliage. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...miles/crap.gif

It's disgusting. No imports or creation of strange creatures to eat them up tho. No one is even spraying them because it would kill the birds.

All I can say is ~ Ick. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...miles/puke.gif

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Having abandoned my
search for truth, I am
now looking for a good
fantasy.

Same thing in Central California, area around Lompoc and Santa Maria. They had tons of Rattlesnakes. Then decided hey! Wild pigs eat Rattlesnakes! And guess what? The Snakes took the high ground and the Pigs took the low ground and all are happy...well almost all... http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...es/biggrin.gif

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A bit off topic but I've eaten fried locust - it doesn't taste that bad. http://www.tgeweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/no...miles/wink.gif

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