Key Chinese Grassland Munched By Bugs - Reuters

[hatrack]

BEIJING - "Locusts, caterpillers and grubs are munching away grasslands in China's impoverished western province of Gansu, posing the gravest threat to the area from bugs in 20 years, Xinhua news agency said.

Nearly 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres) of grasslands in five counties and cities were being attacked by the insects, an official with the local livestock and grassland protection department said. The plague is the most harmful over the past 20 years," the official, Wang Wei, was quoted as saying. "The population density in some place even reaches to 220 insects per square meter," he said.

EDIT

Insects had eaten almost all of the grass in three towns in Maqu County, dubbed "the best natural meadow in Asia," Xinhua said. In 2000, bugs only devoured about 47,000 hectares (116,000 acres), it said.

If the growth in the amount of grasslands being eaten by bugs in southern Gansu is not stopped, the region's entire grasslands will be under threat in about 12 years, it said."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26493/story.htm

[xchrom]

1. calling all ducks, calling all ducks!

ducks LOVE a swarm of bugs to eat.

[blindpig]

2. why?

Is this a natural periodic fluctuation? Have insect predators been suppressed? Is overgrazing an issue? I want answers, dammit!