【inherent eroticism】

Locusts descended upon East Africa in January. The inherent eroticismnext month, a swarm blanketed a huge Kenyan lakeshore, transforming the ground into buzzing, yellow fields. Now in May, the locust outbreak isn't nearly over. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations called the pestilence situation "extremely alarming in East Africa where it is an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods."

It's daunting to find and quell swarms of desert locusts — a voracious grasshopper species whose swarms can devour more food per day than 35,000 people — as the insects naturally inhabit remote regions over 6 millionsquare miles in size. But locust experts are improving ways to predict where the swarms will go, to warn people of approaching outbreaks and to potentially spray the bugs with insecticides.

Locust experts, however, know what will ultimately subdue surges of the forest-denuding animals. It's not a quick solution, nor one with a certain date, explained Hojun Song, an entomologist at Texas A&M University who researches locusts. Quelling desert locusts requires a potent concoction of the right environmental conditions (like drier and cooler weather) combined with a robust human effort to control the insects — though certainly not an effort to completely wipe them out.

"It's not that we want to kill them off," said Song. "They're part of the world."

But we can help end the extreme, if not "biblical," outbreaks.

What does ending a locust outbreak mean?

Desert locusts aren't always marching en masse across the land, or (after they grow wings) descending onto forests and fields in great clouds. This happens when favorable environmental conditions align (like after a series of strong rain seasons and rich plant growth), allowing locust populations to boom. Then, locusts dramatically transform. They change color, and often grow larger. Critically, they transform behaviorallyfrom solitary animals to creatures that are intensely attracted to each other, resulting in exceptional swarms numbering in the tens of millions, or more.

"It’s one of nature's wonders," said Song.

The swarms are eager to find new food, feast, and breed. In the modern world, our crops happen to be widely available. "They're not coming to harm us," explained Song. "They're coming to take advantage of the resources they see as their food."

From the human perspective, this swarming is an outbreak, and after a year or so passes, it's called a "plague." But if the locust numbers can be driven down, the animals will naturally revert to their solitary lives. The swarms will end.

"The goal is to reduce their numbers to where they change their behavior," said Keith Cressman, the senior locust forecaster at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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This won't happen, however, without the environment naturally changing, like a dry season that results in less food. "Mother nature has to help out," emphasized Cressman.

Yet humans can hasten the end of swarms, too. This is accomplished by spraying swarms, each numbering in the tens of millions of locusts (or more), with insecticides. Adult locusts can be found clumped and roosting together at night, for example. If large-scale control efforts are mobilized in locust-plagued nations, humans can have a meaningful impact, explained Song.

After all, before aircraft became available to quell outbreaks in remote woodlands, it was difficult to find and effectively spray locusts. "You would have plagues for 14 years," said Cressman, noting a prolonged plague lasting between 1949 through 1963.

But governments must respond seriously to the outbreaks to have a shot at tempering the surging insects, even though it's expensive or decades may have passed since the last locust scourge. "Locust control is often political," said Song. "Governments have to fund missions in remote areas." If they don't, the pests will flourish, unabated. Then, an outbreak can get out of hand.

"It's similar to what's happened with COVID-19 in the U.S.," noted Song.

This current locust outbreak may last years, but today's satellites and computer models can provide a good idea of where to find the swarms. For now, it's too soon to know how the current outbreaks will progress after the summer rains, though the bugs threaten East Africa, Yemen, India, and Pakistan. "It's too early to say with any precision," said Cressman.

The future, however, might bring an uptick in locust surges. That's because the relentlessly warming globe is expected to create heavier rainfall events in many regions, as a warmer atmosphere holds more water. And East Africa, where desert locusts thrive, is one of those places, explained Song. This could mean better conditions for swarms and bounties of food for future locusts to exploit.

"We might see more frequent outbreaks in the future," Song said.

The locust plagues will always be a difficult balance of human survival in a place that experiences one of nature's most remarkable boom-and-bust cycles of life. It comes in the form of buzzing clouds.

"It's like nothing you’ve ever seen," said Song.