| Home | The Wire | Contacts/Staff | History | Updates | INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES Plague of locusts threatens Australian outback By CHRISTOPHER ZINN The Guardian April 28, 2000 SYDNEY, Australia - A plague of locusts of biblical proportions, estimated at 100 billion-strong, is on the move through the Australian outback, threatening everything in its path from valuable vineyards to laundry hanging out to dry. The infestation _ described as the worst in 20 years _ follows record rains and the greening of normally arid expanses. A change of wind direction is expected to blow it towards the food- and wine-growing area of the Riverina in southern New South Wales. Four airplanes and five helicopters are currently spraying vast areas trying to arrest the migration. "If it gets to the extreme, they tend to attack anything that's green, including green clothes that are hanging on the clothesline," said Geoff File of the New South Wales agriculture department. "They've been known to eat the green out of clothes in a very severe plague, which we rarely get in Australia these days. They can create enormous damage." The Australian plague locust commission said there were massive swarms on both sides of the continent. This was a particularly unusual event which has seen Western Australia's wheat belt, the rangelands of Queensland, as well as South Australia and New South Wales affected. The eastern plague, which has already attacked cereal crops in South Australia, is heading for the rich agricultural areas and could cause $150 million worth of damage, according to commission estimates. "They tend to fly on the same night," said the locust commission's director, Dr. Graeme Hamilton. "There are reports of locusts raining on rooftops at three and four in the morning." Rare and widespread flooding gave the locusts the damp soil they need to hatch new eggs and produced a swathe of green shoots to satisfy their insatiable appetites. "We're spraying what we find. We're trying to do as much as we can as fast as we can," said the commission's operations manager, Walter Spratt. "Because conditions have been so good there have been multiple (egg) layings so there are still quite a lot of juveniles out there." Farmer Brett Eglinton has witnessed a number of small locust hatchings in the past two months. "In the last few days they've started to fly and there are a lot of them in the air," he said. "They don't block out the sun, but they're very thick. We've got millions of them now so we'll have hundreds of millions in the spring." In New South Wales, the commission has identified 48 locust "targets" in the western districts and is spraying with pesticide. But commission forecaster Paul Wilson said the problem is spreading across the state, although the winter will slow it down temporarily. "We have been doing quite a bit of control ...," he said. "Basically, there are locusts over a very, very wide area, and wherever those adults were seen during the autumn, we can expect eggs to hatch in the next spring as well." (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. For more Guardian news go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE 1090 Vermont Ave. N.W. Suite 1000 Washington, D.C. USA 20005 GENERAL LINE: 1.202.408.1484 FAX: 1.202.408.5950 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- � 2000 Scripps Howard News Service. All Rights Reserved. Webmaster e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html <A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
