Grasshopper infestation taking over Tooele County
Jul 29, 2024, 5:00 AM | Updated: 11:48 am
Tooele County is experiencing a widespread grasshopper infestation. (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
(Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
TOOELE, Utah — A widespread infestation of grasshoppers has taken over Tooele County.
“One of the counts was 30 to 40 per square yard,” Linden Greenhalch with Utah State University Extension Services said of the Tooele grasshoppers. “I think it’s greater than that. I just call it too numerous to count.”
Greenhalch says the area is getting hammered because they are restricted from applying insecticide by a plane. Thus only 600 acres have been treated.
He says the hungry grasshoppers in Tooele are causing a lot of damage.
“They’ll completely defoliate your garden, they’ll wipe out a hayfield… They’ll just destroy anything, anything that’s green.”
The bugs are also bad in Sanpete and Box Elder Counties and the Uintah Basin.
Greenhalch says the bugs seem to appear every seven years.
“That’s the only thing I know for sure, that they’re cyclical,” he said. This means, though, this could be close to the end of the infestation.
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