- NARRABRI Australia (Reuters)
- Australia has started battling its biggest plague of locusts in decades
as billions of the insects hatch along a wide front covering much of the
country's central east region.
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- Ground spraying will be stepped up from next week as
dusty, scrubby fields crawl with the quarter-inch hopping baby insects,
New South Wales Plague Locust Commissioner Graeme Eggleston told Reuters.
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- A field inspection on Friday showed countless numbers
of the week-old insects hopping knee high in fields on the outskirts of
Narrabri, a cotton-growing region, 250 miles northwest of Sydney.
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- Officials said the locusts could threaten hundreds of
millions of dollars worth of crops in the Narrabri district alone.
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- Australia's locust fighters are stepping up efforts to
kill the locusts before they start to fly and descend on fields of wheat,
barley and canola in the next few weeks.
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- Rex Simpson, who farms a 8,200 acre spread outside Narrabri,
squinted from beneath a weatherbeaten bush hat across infested plains,
as baby locusts covered the legs of his blue jeans.
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- "I've been here for 24 years and this is the third
lot that I've seen come through," he said. "And this is by far
the biggest lot that I've seen in that time."
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- Eggleston says six helicopter companies and six fixed-wing
aircraft companies are on contract to attack the insects with aerial spray
if ground control does not kill them first.
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- CONCERN OVER MICE
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- The tiny locusts, now about the size of a grain of wheat,
will grow 10 times bigger in the next five weeks, after eating five times
their body weight a day.
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- A dense 250 acre swarm of 40 million insects can eat
10 tons of grains a day -- and travel 300 miles a night if weather conditions
are right.
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- Department of Primary Industries information released
during Friday's site inspection showed reported locust hatchings as of
Sept. 16 were concentrated on the Coonabarabran-Narrabri district in central
New South Wales.
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- But hatchings also extended on a 600 mile front throughout
New South Wales.
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- "They're coming in daily," New South Wales
Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said, with 172 hatchings reported
so far.
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- "When it's bad they can just blot out the sun,"
he said.
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- The New South Wales government, backed by farmer levies,
has spent A$2.5 million ($1.8 million) on enough insecticide to cover almost
124,000 acres. It has about A$1 million in reserve. Spending would rise
dramatically if widespread outbreaks occurred, Macdonald said.
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- This is in addition to spending by the federal body,
the Australian Plague Locust Commission.
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- "We have assembled the largest program that's ever
been put together in this state to fight this potential outbreak,"
Macdonald said.
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- Farmers said there was growing concern over a simultaneous
plague of mice. Both outbreaks have been sparked by the breaking earlier
this year of Australia's worst drought in a century.
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- Rural Land Protection Board officials said 2,200 acres
of mouse bait was laid around Narrabri on Thursday.
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- "They come with their dinner jackets on," New
South Wales Commissioner Eggleston said of the mice, which particularly
like yellow fields of canola now growing in the Narrabri district.
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- © Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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