Philip Rucker

Big bugs with bulging goggle eyes swarmed the remote Utah, US, ranching outpost of Grouse Creek like a biblical plague. Each of the past four summers, the hungry critters known as Mormon crickets have marched by the tens of thousands over grassy hillsides, past juniper trees, across dirt roads and through ranch houses. The noisy insects have devoured crops, frightened children and threatened families’ livelihoods in the tranquil high desert.

“It’s almost like an Alfred Hitchcock movie,” said Brent Tanner, who helps run a large cattle ranch in Grouse Creek that has been in his family since the 1870s. “They’ll just crawl right into your house, get up on your walls. It’s enough to drive a person totally insane.”

And this summer, scientists say, it’s a sure bet Mormon crickets will be back. “Everything that’s green is just gone,” said Tanner’s older brother, Jay, who described what happens after Mormon crickets hatch on federal land, migrate onto his family’s Della Ranches and eat up acres of grass, alfalfa and cattle feed. “When the crickets come and devastate the area, then I’m done. There’s really nothing I can do. It’s just like coming in and stealing money out of my wallet.”

Mormon crickets are katydids that got their common name when Mormon pioneers settled in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. After their first crops were harvested, according to legend, millions of voracious insects swarmed them. But a band of seagulls swept in, ate the insects and saved the crops. Ever since, the bugs have been called Mormon crickets. Officials say the insects are difficult, if not impossible, to kill off. “We don’t believe eradication is possible,” said Larry Lewis, spokesman for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

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