In recent weeks, grey nomads visiting Wangaratta might have seen the town infested with giant tumbleweed, those in Winton might have seen the place taken over by moths and now it’s the turn of tiny Balfe’s Creek near Charters Towers to be inundated.
This time it’s the traditional locus plague which is getting travellers to reach for their cameras, while local farmers shake their heads in despair.
The ABC reports that a combination of hot, summer temperatures, about 200 millimetres of rain and the first sign of ‘green pick’ have proved an irresistible combination for yellow-winged locusts.
“The best way I can describe it is: Imagine a football field, a lush-green football field, and you come out the next morning and half of it is back to bare dirt,” Patrick Scharf, of Tarangie Station, told the national broadcaster. “We never had the grass coverage, or a body of grass after a failed wet season and then we have had locusts on top of that. It’s just piling on top of each other.”
To make matters worse, the yellow-winged species, in contrast to the spur-throated and other plague locusts, have not been declared a pest in Queensland.
Biosecurity Queensland’s general manager for invasive plants and animals, John Robertson, said the localised nature and biological differences of the yellow-winged species meant they did not cause the widespread devastation of migratory plagues. He said monitoring had showed areas west of Charters Towers had “really copped it” but other areas were experiencing normal activity.
