[HN Gopher] "Unprecedented" locust invasion threatens crops in E...
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"Unprecedented" locust invasion threatens crops in East Africa
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 118 points
Date : 2020-01-31 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| scythe wrote:
| So my guess for deterring these pests would be a setup with high-
| intensity mid-ultraviolet LEDs (200-300 nm) pointed upwards,
| which should render large proportions of the exposed population
| sterile if not dead (sterile might be better than dead if it
| inhibits effective mating). 300 nm is about the limit for
| ionizing DNA. Humans can be advised to avoid the lamps.
| sitkack wrote:
| Use drones with nets to catch them and turn them into food.
| zackmorris wrote:
| On that note, grasshoppers were a primary staple for many
| Native American tribes:
|
| http://www.native-languages.org/legends-grasshopper.htm
|
| http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/amerindians.htm
|
| I'm having trouble finding articles, but basically they used to
| weave large nets and string them along places where insects
| gathered. It was basically land fishing.
|
| I think people might be surprised to learn just how easy it was
| to thrive in hunter-gatherer societies. Salmon and shellfish
| were effectively unlimited, so if you knew which native plants
| to eat (like wild onions, carrots and especially camas where
| I'm from), you could meet all of your daily macronutrient and
| vitamin/mineral needs on 2 hours of work per day.
|
| Edit: here's also a concise list of edible plants and herbs
| with their effects:
|
| https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-herbs/9/
| imtringued wrote:
| Build a jet UAV that is resilient against locusts and just fly
| them into the swarm.
| designium wrote:
| "Locusts are the swarming phase of certain species of short-
| horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae. These insects are
| usually solitary, but under certain circumstances become more
| abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming
| gregarious" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust
|
| So, in normal circumstances, grasshoppers are benign but under
| certain conditions, they can form swarms.
| Zenst wrote:
| Yes, been studied and shown it is overcrowding that causes this
| and you can by rubing the back legs of a grasshopper for about
| 30 mins(iirc maybe shooter time) and it will start to develop
| wings and change.
|
| The rubbing of back legs in nature happens when you have high
| dense populations - overcrowding due to rushing for limited
| food in an area. Which evolving wings and flying elsewhere
| would be nature at play.
|
| Real trick would be to curtail grasshopper numbers before they
| swarm and perhaps a more balanced approach to grasshoppers
| natural enemies and encouraging habits for those will do well.
| Chemicals for me are a desperate solution to a problem that got
| overlooked. Much the same way that ant do wonders with many
| pests for plants, yet production methods end up curtailing
| environments that see them thrive in area's that would benefit.
| So we end up with chemicals for things like aphids when ants
| will eat them all up for you.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| > you can by rubing the back legs of a grasshopper for about
| 30 mins(iirc maybe shooter time) and it will start to develop
| wings and change.
|
| If true, this seems very effective for economic terrorism. I
| wonder why thats not more common.
| Zenst wrote:
| The rubbing only increased serotonin levels and 4-3 hours
| later after that boost, they transform. So if you was to
| increase their serotonin levels via other means, you would
| still only turn grasshoppers into locusts. Yes locusts
| metabolism in faster, so they are more veracious.
|
| As a form of terrorism, well you would still need to bread
| and or/find a huge swarm of grasshoppers and if you found
| such a size large enough, they would already naturally be
| swarming. Though the prospect of some terrorist group
| breaking grasshoppers has an edge of Chris Morris about it
| that bemuses me.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Fascinating that it is related to serotonin! I wonder if
| an antagonist would prevent the behaviour? Might be
| challenging to dose large numbers of locusts.
|
| Maybe target them with commercials for pro-depressants?
| Feeling restless, gregarious, like you just might take
| ravenous flight? Ask your locust doctor if pro-
| depressants are right for you.
|
| Then we just need some sexually attractive locusts to
| lobby the locust doctors and problem solved!
| baroomba wrote:
| A production rate of 32 locusts per person per 16-hour
| workday isn't enough to matter unless you have a small army
| of people rubbing grasshopper legs together all day, I'd
| think. Though it is a pretty funny image.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The grasshoppers self-activate as locusts under crowded
| conditions. Once they enter the swarming phase, the
| behaviour is self-perpetuating, generally until foid
| supplies are exhausted. With high mobility, this can take
| time and strip tremendous areas of land.
|
| By stocking a sufficient population early on, in
| sufficient confinement,, it might be possible to create a
| perpetuating, expanding, swarm.
| phkahler wrote:
| Just keep enough of them in a small enclosure. Be
| prepared to increase enclosure size rapidly for a few
| days or weeks.
| baroomba wrote:
| Looks like grasshoppers generally live 50ish days as an
| adult. That's gonna put some serious limits on your max
| per-grasshopper-leg-rubber total accumulated
| grasshoppers.
| imtringued wrote:
| The grasshoppers rub each other.
| slowhand09 wrote:
| Grasshoppers already HAVE wings. Touch one you find somewhere
| and watch it fly away. They hop and fly.
| Supermancho wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust
|
| Locusts and Grasshoppers are different insects.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| That page says at the top that locusts are grasshoppers.
|
| "Locusts are a collection of certain species of short-
| horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a
| swarming phase."
|
| They are grasshoppers that have decided to change
| behaviour and physical characteristics for some reason.
| They used to be considered different species.
| Sharlin wrote:
| The very first sentence in the article says that locusts
| are a type of grasshopper.
| vba wrote:
| What do you mean by develop wings? Don't they already have
| them?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm not pro-chemical, but it's hard to imagine other
| solutions that are actionable in the timeframe of a weather
| prediction (this timeframe is critical because these swarms
| were spawned due to weather anomalies). Indeed, according to
| TFA it sounds like the UN isn't even trying to curtail the
| locusts at all but are just preparing for disaster recovery.
|
| Crop insurance seems like a more tractable solution.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I think the problem is rather that they destroy crops than
| insurance; farmers probably can't grow crops in time before
| another swarm destroy them.
|
| As for stopping them, I would try covering a wide enough
| area with a giant electric net (just like those insects
| killers) also placing additional screening nets on the
| upper and lower side so that the screens would keep birds
| away, and the actual electric net would have its holes
| large enough so that smaller insects would remain mostly
| untouched. The idea is that if they're stupid enough, they
| will eat all crops in vicinity then eventually die
| attempting to attack the only remaining field.
| 40acres wrote:
| I was very surprised when I first learned this fact a few weeks
| ago. It's hard to think of another species that acts so
| differently in a pack, very similar to humans in my view.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Swarm behaviour is a field of study, across many species and
| phyla:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour
| pintxo wrote:
| If anyone wonders what happens if a proper airplane tries to fly
| through a swarm of locust:
| http://avherald.com/h?article=4d1de8cc&opt=0
|
| > The windscreen wipers were not able to clear the windshield
| anymore. The crew went around, climbed to 8500 feet,
| depressurized the aircraft, opened the cockpit side window and
| cleaned the windscreen by hand. The same happened on second
| approach to Dire Dawa. The crew again climbed to 8500 feet,
| cleaned the windscreen by hand again and diverted to Addis Ababa.
| mhandley wrote:
| HN discussion is here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22073796
| davidw wrote:
| Plagues, locusts... oh my :-(
| tus88 wrote:
| Global warming...the apocalypse is coming.
| derision wrote:
| Noah.. get the boat
| thrower123 wrote:
| Waterworld, the most accurate of all the apocalyptic
| visions of the future, lol.
| Zenst wrote:
| Given Locusts have an exoskeleton, would some kinds of focused
| sound weapon have a viable use in bringing down such swarms?
| jcims wrote:
| 30kw microwave radar would probably work too. You can buy the
| magnetrons on alibaba for a couple hundred bucks.
| phkahler wrote:
| Nice. Looks like frequencies from 10 to 20 khz may have a
| locust size wavelength. You might want to use half that
| frequency, and a very high power. Wonder if that would do
| anything to them
| oneplane wrote:
| Imagine the source of protein you'd get! While probably not
| super handy (as it only happens during swarming times) and
| maybe even ecosystem-disruptive, turning them in to food would
| be useful.
| Zenst wrote:
| Wouldn't look at this as a farming avenue, more a way to
| respond to such scaled issues using tools that may very well
| already exist or be modified to cater for such needs.
|
| Certainly aware of crowd control sound weapons, I'd be
| supprised if the militaries of the world didn't have there
| own more powerful flavours begging for a PR test opportunity
| like this.
| oneplane wrote:
| Now I wonder if there is a single resonant frequency that
| would work on all of them. The individual differences alone
| would be hard. Perhaps a general microwave type of
| weapon/harvester would work better?
| zentiggr wrote:
| Wow, we're approaching "Mars Attacks!" territory here.
| That could be a viable tactic though
| sitkack wrote:
| Phased array microwave beams could cause enough
| instantaneous local heating to kill them, could optical
| detection to steer the beam.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| And, if you keep a history of where the beam went, you
| know where go to to harvest the carcasses for protein.
| danschumann wrote:
| Why don't people eat the locusts? I mean... good protein, right?
| i1856511 wrote:
| Sure, would you like to be the first?
| henrygrew wrote:
| The kenyan government is unprepared to handle this incident
| despite earlier warnings, the local minister cited a lack of an
| effective chemical in the local market, adding that the fight
| against the insect has been slowed down by the long procurement
| and import bureaucracies.
|
| https://kenyanlist.net/index.php?threads/munya-says-that-the...
| markdown wrote:
| Napalm needed.
| henrygrew wrote:
| scenes from the local villages,
|
| https://kenyanlist.net/index.php?threads/how-to-chase-locust...
| navaati wrote:
| Wow, these stuff are _beasts_ ! They look enormous !
| [deleted]
| felipemnoa wrote:
| A giant net and you could at least eat them after they feast on
| your crops:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust#As_food
|
| There is no more ferocious predator than humans. If they became
| a delicacy all over the world they wouldn't stand a chance in
| hell.
|
| According to the wikipedia article: "Locusts yield about five
| times more edible protein per unit of fodder than cattle, and
| produce lower levels of greenhouse gases in the process."
| henrygrew wrote:
| Yeah, a good source of protein, with the huge numbers a
| challenge would be drying and storage
| londons_explore wrote:
| You probably already have equipment to dry and store the
| grain.
|
| Reuse of the same equipment to dry the insects might be
| doable.
| jbotz wrote:
| "The swarms increase in size twentyfold with each successive
| generation and could reach _India_ by June. "
|
| India? Am I missing something or is this is an error in the text?
| wozer wrote:
| Or maybe they decide to go to Europe?
| ropiwqefjnpoa wrote:
| At 150km a day, seems possible.
| iamalocust wrote:
| No this is not an error. The desert locusts Wikipedia says the
| locusts can fly 100km a day. June is four months away so that's
| plenty of time.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_locust
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| apparently they can move 90 MILES a day. I guess if they have
| food and no predators they can move and take over.
| Balero wrote:
| Having predators isn't an issue. There will be plenty, just
| there are so many locusts. So many that even after all the
| predators are filled to bursting, there won't be a noticeable
| drop in the numbers.
| sp332 wrote:
| At 150 kilometers per day, they could cover the 3,500 km
| between Egypt and India in 20 days. Of course they're not
| covering that much distance every day, but they can jump
| between distant sources of food very quickly, so smaller gaps
| between crops or across deserts won't stop them.
| brianprovost wrote:
| Looks like they're currently in Ethiopia (NE Africa) so India
| seems correct.
|
| Looks like they rarely fly over water though:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626356/
| baybal2 wrote:
| There was a horrendous locust swarms few months ago in Punjab
| already before the winter.
|
| The same megaswarm was in Saudi Arabia a year ago.
|
| It seems that the swarm has since split, with one swarm going
| back to Africa
| celim307 wrote:
| Getting real 40k Tyranid vibes
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| > The U.S. Agency for International Development says it released
| $800,000 to support FAO's response in eastern Africa.
|
| That's enough to send a couple diplomats down there to give the
| locals the middle finger, not including airfare.
| Zenst wrote:
| I wonder how drones would fair flying thru this, as on scale a
| locust in relation to the engines upon a drone is large in
| relation of a bird to an aeroplane engine.
| simias wrote:
| It seems a bit tone-deaf to worry about drones when this could
| trigger severe food shortages.
| Zenst wrote:
| Thank you for asking that and my apologies for not initially
| providing a context and by that poor omission opening up the
| very valid and fair possibility that I was being callous and
| uncaring. Also thank you for taking the time to raise that
| question instead of blindly judging and running with the
| worst case presumption, thank you.
|
| I was thinking along the lines of fishing them as a food
| resources and drones with nets, but before I ran with that
| was wondering how well a drone would cope with such swarms
| and not something that the net did not offerup as a clear
| answer, either.
|
| [EDIT ADD first paragraph ]
| simias wrote:
| Ah, I see. I thought it was a random musing. My apologies
| then.
|
| That being said regardless of the efficiency of such a
| solution I suspect that the scale of the invasion would
| make it hard to make a difference lest you have an army of
| drones at your disposal. The area to cover is insanely
| large.
| Zenst wrote:
| No apology needed, and thank you for taking the time to
| comment your thoughts as without such feedback I would
| never of been able to clear things up.
|
| [EDIT ADD] Indeed, if anything I should apologize as I'd
| left no context behind the question and leaving that open
| left the possibility of callous unthoughtfulness and you
| most kindly and rightly so, raised that aspect. Many
| would of just gone with a downvote - presumed the worst
| and ran with it in sillence, so again thank you for
| taking the time to question that. If I could mod you up
| more for that, I would.
|
| [EDIT ADD - I was able to edit my initial reply as did
| seem you was being unfairly judged and I hope I've
| addressed that]
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I think something more like a kite rig
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_rig, but a net would be
| good. if they could be "thrown" up in the air quickly, have
| a sort of sticky inside so locust would be caught better,
| as they filled the net the net would become heavy and be
| brought down. The net should then be easily detachable
| somehow, attach another, throw up into the swarm.
|
| Swarm passes by, the kite netters have a couple tons of
| locusts netted, a good harvest.
|
| on edit: personally like because has such a 50s sci-fi feel
| to it.
| Zenst wrote:
| I like the idea of kites, was thinking rockets and large
| net.
|
| As for the Sci-fi, soon as you mentioned that I oddly
| thought of Dune, probably the rare resource mining aspect
| of such swarms and climate comparison going on there.
| sitkack wrote:
| Big fabric rotors, like those used on old windmills or a
| VAWT could scoop them out of the sky.
| Zenst wrote:
| I just had a dig into what altitude they fly at and 2,000
| meter ceiling would make things more complicated.
|
| Hot air balloons dropping nets, or some weather balloons
| - again tethered. Though would probably want to run with
| hydrogen for costs, just safety and training go up, so
| greater initial costs there. So many details.
|
| Kinda gets down to sky versions of submarine nets in
| predictable flight paths into crop area's as being the
| best spots to set such trapping nets up.
|
| Though if it turns out you just need to lay down football
| sized green carpet and that attracts them - well that
| opens up other avenues in trapping or indeed - zapping
| them once they touch down.
| civilian wrote:
| This has already been addressed by Zenst, but this is a forum
| with a lot of engineers. Of course zenst was thinking about
| whether it's viable to use drones as a locust prevention
| measure, but you first have to start with whether drones can
| even fly in a locust swarm.
|
| Get out of here with your pre-judgement
| tnel77 wrote:
| How so? They didn't say the safety of drones are more
| important than the people of East Africa. Drones could very
| well be used to help combat this crisis. Have you considered
| not being upset just for the fun of it?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Not well, there are documented cases of locust swarms bringing
| down small planes, and causing emergencies on large planes.
| NittLion78 wrote:
| ...as recently as 2 weeks ago, no less
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51098209
| Zenst wrote:
| Thank you, suspected as much but just didn't know. Was
| pondering drone fishing fleets harvesting such swarms, back
| to the mental drawing board then for me.
| jcims wrote:
| Honestly I think battery-powered drones with hardened or
| screened props would have the best shot against locusts.
| One of the main vulnerabilities for aircraft is the need to
| intake fresh air for combustion. This doesn't apply to
| drones. They also navigate using RF sensors and fly slow
| enough to avoid much collision damage. The locusts might
| start landing on them which could easily become
| incompatible with controlled flight, but that's the only
| thing that comes to mind.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I understand that, we can make 'high protein flour' out of
| crickets[1] it seems like we should be able to process
| Locusts into some sort of protein source for human
| consumption.
|
| But it is really hard to actually visualize/imagine these
| swarms without actually being there in one. The amount of
| infrastructure you would have to deploy essentially on a
| short term basis[2] is really infeasible with current
| technology.
|
| [1] https://www.cricketflours.com/
|
| [2] Swarms are a function of environmental conditions, they
| grow exponentially but they die quickly when conditions
| change, it is the series of monsoons at the right time that
| have made this one so big. In "regular" years they are much
| smaller.
| cwmma wrote:
| Locust are crickets so yes you would be able to
| molteanu wrote:
| There was also pictorial from The Guardian a few days ago,
| "Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya"[1] regarding this.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/jan/24/billio...
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Oh my. One swarm is ~2400 square kilometers/~930 square miles,
| and could contain up to 200 billion locusts. And moving at
| 150km per day. Madness. You can understand why various cultures
| have viewed them as a punishment from god.
|
| Here's this quote from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima
| ls/invertebrates/gro...: "Each locust can eat its weight in
| plants each day, so a swarm of such size would eat 423 million
| pounds of plants every day." This is describing a swarm a
| "mere" 460 sq miles in size.
| Zenst wrote:
| > 200 billion locusts
|
| For context - there are 4 billion IPv4 addresses in total if
| that helps with scale of things for some.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Talk about the internet of things...
| zentiggr wrote:
| That's unbelieveable... I can't imagine that there's any real
| way to control swarms that large, and the idea of burning the
| entire country clean to starve them out seems a bit
| counterproductive.
| mc32 wrote:
| Aside from pesticides, nets. Some places where bugs eat
| produce if not protected have nets covering and enclosing the
| whole farm.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| There's a good scene depicting a locust swarm in _Things Fall
| Apart_.
|
| The traditional village that is the subject of the
| (fictional) story sees swarms as a blessing -- they may eat
| crops, but you can harvest and eat the locusts themselves,
| and there are so many.
| plopz wrote:
| When the article says its the worst in 25 years, does that mean
| the historical record only goes back 25 years or that a worse
| invasion happened in 1995? From what I can see Wikipedia has an
| article for an infestation in 2004 and mentions 1989 as a
| previously notably bad situation in western Africa.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Couldn't they do something like stick up big electrified nets at
| the crop areas?
|
| Locusts fly into them and get buzzed? Or something similar
| ropiwqefjnpoa wrote:
| Not sure where to being with this, but locust swarms like this
| are a force of nature. Maybe you could save your backyard
| garden with nets or cover, _maybe_. But not acres and acres of
| farmland.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| >> _Couldn't they do something like stick up big electrified
| nets at the crop areas?_
|
| Over millions and tens of millions of acres? Not doable. Maybe
| a genetic tweak and then release them to neutralize the rest.
| Poison will probably kill other beneficial or not so dangerous
| insects. Either way, a locust party will ruin this year crops
| for the unfortunate farmer being visited. This is even worst
| since Africa is already poor
| henrygrew wrote:
| the outer exoskeleton is quite tough and doesn't seem to
| conduct electricity
| londons_explore wrote:
| With enough volts, anything conducts...
| [deleted]
| sansnomme wrote:
| Will fuel-air incendiary work on insect swarms?
| zentiggr wrote:
| Probably as well as on all the vegetation and populace...
| astrea wrote:
| Surely. As would a nuclear bomb.
| nicharesuk wrote:
| Return the slab, or suffer my curse.
| dougmwne wrote:
| There're some entertaining control measures being suggested in
| the comments. To my knowledge, the best control measure is
| pesticide application programs that use modeling to suggest
| optimal treatment locations. If you can develop a better locust
| population model, FAO would likely be interested.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I think genetic modifications could help but it's probably a
| long shot.
| [deleted]
| stevespang wrote:
| I read that insect protein is like 60% to 70% of the entire
| animal - - way higher than beef.
|
| Pesticides will only further poison our world. What is needed is
| urgent development of monster military aircraft flying through
| locust storm with intense radar (microwaves) to fry them,ready to
| eat. Otherwise,there are at present many biological microbes that
| could be aerosolized to attack locusts:
| http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2006/1000345/index.html
|
| BTW, Amazon reaches new high today, but is that the "top" ?
| Because all indicators are flashing red on the Chinese economy,
| which this coming Monday only about 1/3rd of factories to open,if
| that much,and so soon Amazon will run out of Chinese crap to
| sell, which is like 70% of their inventory . . .
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