Show Dinosaur Monument cricket control successful I An attempt to biologically control a severe infestation of Mormon crickets at Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah Colorado-Utah border appears successful the US U.S. Department Department Department Depart Depart- ment of Agriculture Research Service has reported This past year a acre area of the Monuments Monument's Zenobia basin which is notorious for spawning immense immense immense im im- im- im mense cricket populations produced a sparse cricket crop The basin had been treated with wheat bran containing a deadly parasite of grasshoppers and crickets called sickness grasshoppers during the spring of 1976 Mormon crickets a wingless species of cricket at the Monument can do serious damage to adjacent rangelands When cricket populations become too dense the insects migrate distances up to 25 miles consuming an and destroying vast quantities of valuable rangeland forage beyond the monuments monument's boundaries The crickets are related to those that threatened Mormon settlements in Utah in the century and brought fame to seagulls |