
Cattle are competing against grasshoppers for food in the West's historic drought. The bugs are winning.
CNN
The West's historic drought has ranchers fighting against another problem besides water shortages: a prolific hoard of grasshoppers is competing with cattle for food.
Around 93% of the West is in some level of drought this week, and a bizarre impact of this pernicious dry condition is the explosion of the grasshopper population. Grasshoppers have devoured so much vegetation that many ranchers fear rangelands could be stripped bare. A 2021 grasshopper hazard map from the US Department of Agriculture shows each square yard of land contains at least 15 grasshoppers in parts of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska.
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