The states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have experienced the worst grasshopper infestations so far this summer.
Ranchers across the Great Plains and northern Rocky Mountains are battling what some are calling the worst infestation of grasshoppers in 20 years.
“They’ve eaten everything but the cactus,” South Dakota rancher Mark Tubbs told the Associated Press.
He and other ranchers are planning to sell off a portion of their cattle this fall because they won’t be able to harvest enough fodder to feed all of their existing herds over the winter.
Some say the ravenous insects are chomping through their alfalfa crop as quickly as it is growing.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says that the infestation is a natural cycle which, as with many other insects, ebbs and flows based on moisture, drought and other factors.
Photo: Ruslan Kokarev - Photolia