Israel Locust Swarm
Israel invaded by an army of 10,00,000 desert Locusts !
There is a story in the Bible that to teach a lesson to the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt that rained atrocities on the Jews i.e. the Israelites, the Good Lord bestowed 10 different types of tortuous plagues on them. According to God's will the eighth catastrophe started when large swarms of locusts were suddenly seen in the skies over Egypt. These locust swarms descended onto the fields there and proceeded to demolish the whole crop in a matter of minutes.
The exact opposite of this nightmare was seen when equally huge groups of locusts that had attacked and destroyed crops in Egypt as a form of punishment for enslaving Israeli citizens, came down into Israel and destroyed the crops of this country to a great extent. Nevertheless, Egypt was also not saved from these horrendous attacks since a huge swarm comprising about 3,00,00,000 locusts got into the fields and destroyed them. Millions of locusts were born in January 2013 in Northeast Sudan and Southeast Egypt. They travelled along the banks of the Red Sea in February and reached Cairo--the capital of Egypt--by March. The swarm of about 10,00,000 locusts then turned towards Israel (see the map on the right) and damaged tonnes of crops in many fields.
Though the locust is not an unknown insect for us, very few people actually know this insect in its true light. The first point towards its introduction is that there is no insect actually known as the locust in the insect world. It is just another type of grasshopper. There are about 10,000 species of grasshoppers.Amongst these species, the ones which have short antennae and are known as the short horned grasshopper also go by the name of locust. There are only about 10 to 12 types of locusts or short-horned grasshoppers. The only difference between a grasshopper and a locust is that the common grasshopper lives a solitary life while the grasshopper known as the locust exists in a colossal swarm.
The most dangerous of the 10 to 12 types of locusts is the desert locust which inhabits the deserts of Arabia and Sahara and is spread all over countries like Sudan and Somalia. These insects take off in huge swarms to search for food and when they take to the skies, African countries like Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and sometimes cities of Pakistan and West India also suffer from their attacks. When their colossal swarms descend on countries like North Africa the citizens of this country lose about 40 to 45% of their crop produce and so to fulfill their domestic needs,they have to import food grains from other countries.
The newly born locusts that live alone and can barely hop short distances in search of food do not pose a great threat to crops. However, about 30 days later two important transformations occur. (1) The locust grows wings, and soon the amount of produce becomes scarce in the fields. (2) The behaviour of the locusts suddenly undergoes a drastic change. Instead of avoiding each other they come together as soon as they see each other. When their legs dash against each other a pheromone is released from a gland. This pheromone attracts each to the other.
This change should be considered most important since the locust stops preferring its solitary existence and turns gregarious. The swarm which grows slowly and surely starts flapping its wings and takes off in search of food and moves forward after polishing off whichever fields come in its way. Such swarms plague regions having areas as big as 3,20,00,000 square kilometres in regions like North Africa, Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, India, etc. (See the adjacent map). Not only does the whole field get wiped out but more often than not a single blade of grass is also not spared.
The main reason as to why these insects are so terrifying is that they are gluttons. Each locust needs food equal to its body weight. The weight of a single locust is not more than 2 grams, but when there are millions of locusts in one swarm the destruction caused by them is colossal. Sometimes a swarm is so big that it resembles a black cloud floating in the sky. Naturalists estimate that such a swarm can be spread over an area of 110 square kilometres and can collectively weigh about 15,000 metric tonnes! It is quite obvious that such a huge swarm will polish off crops and other plants equal to 15,000 metric tonnes. Many years ago, a huge swarm comprising 1,50,000 gluttons descended on Ethiopia and polished off huge amounts of grains and crops so much so, that the country lost produce that was enough to feed 10,00,000 people for 12 months. Before the United Nations Organisation / UNO could reach them the needed amount of grain, 2,600 people lost their lives to starvation.
Yet another example of locust menace: A few years ago millions of locusts raided the North African country Morocco's fields. There are about 15 cows every square kilometre in Morocco and they are domesticated for milk. Each cow needs about 12 kilograms of green fodder every day. The holocaust of locusts that descended on this country's fields polished off about 1000 times the fodder every cow needs in a single day. In other words 15 x 12 x 1000 = 1,80,000 kilograms of fodder was eaten up by the locusts. Hundreds of cows lost their lives due to starvation. Do not forget that 1,80,000 kilograms of fodder was lost per square kilometre; therefore, just one attack of these destructive locusts rendered nearly the whole area of South Morocco almost barren.
The locusts take off simultaneously in a single swarm first hop for some distance in the air, then flap their wings all together and rise up. They can travel up to 15 kilometres per hour, but when the wind is favourable their speed increases noticeably. For example, in 1945 a swarm of African locusts crossed the Mediterranean Sea to reach Portugal in Europe. These locusts had taken only 24 hours to cover the distance of 1,000 kilometres. Sometimes during a voyage of such a swarm another swarm or two joins it, and the cumulative strength of this already strong enemy increases so much that it is now even stronger than it was before. The world record of the biggest locust swarm has perhaps been set by the swarm that was seen over the Red Sea during 1889 and which was roughly estimated to spread over an area of 5,000 square kilometres. Experts opined that there must have been at least 250 billion locusts in the swarm. The estimated weight of the swarm: 5,08,000 metric tonnes!
In 1784, an entomologist named James Fletcher sighted a galaxy-like swarm of locusts that was spread over an area of 3,200 square kilometres. This huge ‘cloud' succeeded in covering the Sun for quite a few minutes. In a study article he penned for a daily he wrote that after polishing off all the vegetation and fields for miles around these gluttonous insects turned towards the sea and were carried to far off places by the strong winds blowing over the sea. Finally, the whole swarm was flung away by a powerful cyclone. Millions of locusts fell into the sea and died. A few days later when there was high tide in the sea, the carcasses of these ogres were thrown up on the shore by the large waves. James Fletcher noted that a heap as high as 1.21 metres (4 feet) was formed on the beach which was in turn spread unbroken over an area of 80 kilometres. There is a lot of fat stored in the body of these insects and so they had not drowned due to natural buoyancy.
Here's another event that happened during 1933 in South Africa. A passenger train was travelling over lush green area covered with all types of vegetation. The driver was feeding coal into the engine's furnace and so he was not looking at the tracks. The fireman was also busy helping the driver. Suddenly the train started losing speed. When the driver looked up he saw that hordes of locusts had completely covered the tracks on both the sides for quite a long distance. There was a lot of grass as well as numerous shrubs and bushes all around the tracks which the locusts wanted to consume and so they had pushed each other onto the tracks in their competition to get at the greenery. Consequently, a large number of locusts were killed under the wheels of the train and due to the lubrication of the tracks with the fat released from their bodies the wheels of the train could not get a grip on the tracks. They started revolving at one place instead of going forward and the journey came to a grinding halt. The train proceeded 18 long hours later only after the blubber of the dead locusts, as well as the swarms of live locusts, was cleared from the railway lines.
After spreading destruction in West Asia and Africa when there is nothing edible left in these places the gluttonous locusts turn towards new horizons in search of food. They travel long distances to finally reach Pakistan and India via Iran and Iraq. From the year 1861 to 1993 India has borne 14 locust attacks; some of them lasting as long as 2 to 5 years at a stretch. (Refer to the table). During each attack the farmers lost a lot of (and all of it especially during the 19th century attacks) crops. The regions where locusts attacked were declared drought affected.
The time when locusts reach and attack Indian fields is between April and October. Sometimes a colossal army comes into India via Sind in Pakistan. They usually fly at an altitude of 2,000 metres and so it is impossible to stop their entrance. The Sind-Rajasthan border and the Sind-Gujarat border are 1,035 and 512 kilometres long respectively. Therefore, it is impossible to guess the exact place from where the swarm will enter India. The other difficulty is that Pakistan, even after suffering from a locust attack, never gives any warning about it to India. In June 1993, a few separate swarms came down into Sind but India came to know of this occurrence only when 62 swarms entered and attacked crops in Gujarat and Rajasthan during the month of July. Before any preventive measures could be taken they had spread over 18 districts of Rajasthan and had destroyed crops cultivated in an area of 3,50,000 hectares. Two helicopters along with 4 aircraft sprayed the affected areas with a pesticide known as benzene hexachloride/BHC and 700 workers sprayed the pesticide with the help of portable sprayers in all the affected fields. However, the ogres had created a lot of havoc until then.
This evil is such that no amount of preparedness or scientific fight back proves sufficient to combat it. Although a number of methods have been adopted with the aid of technology the attacks of locusts continue in the same horrifying manner and regularity as before. They have not lessened at all; on the contrary, during an attack in 2003-05 these greedy giants surpassed themselves. Fortunately, India was saved from this onslaught, but about 22 African countries lost grains worth 2.5 billion dollars. The Food and Agriculture Institute of UNO spent 400 million dollars to spray pesticides over the affected areas. Nevertheless, the locusts which can polish off grains within the blinking of an eye caused a lot of destruction before they were controlled.
There are a few reasons as to why starting from the Biblical period right up to the present times mankind has been helpless against a locust attack. Once a swarm of locusts is air borne it is impossible to hold them by any means. The only way to keep the locust population in check is to spray pesticide on the newborns before they grow wings. However, it is very difficult to know where they are born in the vast desert spread over thousands of kilometres. Locusts live freely in the wild as there are no natural predators that can prove a threat to locusts in the desert regions. Locusts are a favourite food of the starling but this bird can catch only those locusts which are hopping about on the ground. It is incapable of catching a flying locust. Starlings do not inhabit the deserts, so the locusts have virtually no predator. It is for just these reasons that Israel proved helpless during the recent locust attack. Nearly 10,00,000 locusts who invaded Israeli fields have left the country in huge doldrums of chaos and destruction.
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