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Video Day of the Locusts

Peter McCutcheon

The drought breaking rain over Eastern Australia is having an unwelcome and potentially devastating side effect. Farmers in four states are bracing themselves for a plague of locusts. Large parts of NSW, Victoria and South Australia are expecting the insects to begin hatching between now and mid October, posing a multi-billion dollar threat to the grains industry. Aerial spraying is already underway in Queensland's Central West in anticipation of the biggest locust plague since the 1970's.


ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: The drought-breaking rain over eastern Australia is having an unwelcome and potentially devastating side effect.


Large parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are expecting the insects to begin hatching between now and mid-October, posing a multi-billion dollar threat to the grains industry.

And aerial spraying is already under way in Queensland central west in anticipation of the biggest locust plague since the 1970s.

PETER MCCUTCHEON, REPORTER: A low-flying helicopter from Queensland's central west appears to stir up a dust cloud.

But this is no bull dust, but rather a swarm of very hungry, potentially destructive insects.

GEOFF SWAN, BIOSECURITY QLD: There was one swarm that was nine ks by three ks large.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Nine ks by three ks?

GEOFF SWAN: Yes, there are some big swarms out there.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Queensland authorities this winter are carrying out their largest locust-spraying operation in more than a decade.

DUNCAN SWAN, BIOSECURITY QLD: When you're getting densities like swarm densities we're seeing now up to 50 per square meter they can have a huge impact on crops.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: And in southern states the number of locust eggs in the ground suggest they're facing one of the worst springs in more than 30 years.

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN, AUST. PLAGUE LOCUSTS COMMISSION: We've got very high density layings, up to 10,000 eggs per square meter in some instances.

FARMER: I've never seen anything quite that bad ever before. I have seen locusts around before but nothing to that extent.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: After years of drought there's been consecutive seasons of good rainfall across much of eastern and inland Australia from the Gulf down to western New South Wales.

That's great news, not only for farmers but also for locusts.

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN: When you've had a number of dry years where the population has been suppressed due to drought and then you have a period of good conditions such as we've had for the first six months of this year, then you get a major population explosion.

(vision from archives)

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Locust plagues have always been a part of Australian agriculture, with the notorious outbreak in the 1930s before the introduction of aerial spraying.

This 1950s Victorian Government documentary shows how the problem was dealt with over half a century ago.

(from archival footage)

MAN TALKING ON PHONE: There's a very heavy swarm over here and the back of Carrowfiled Jack.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: In some ways, not much has changed.

(current footage)

JOHN CHANDLER, GRAZIER: Yes, Geoff, I was on my way to Emerald and there's a huge swarm of locusts in Rosemount on the Marabathong Road. Went for about five ks.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Barcaldon grazier John Chandler says he's never seen so many locusts.

JOHN CHANDLER: Previously in about '74, I think, they were really bad but nothing like this, not the length of time they've been here, not the density and not the number of swarms that have come through.

So I think that they don't know about them I'll give Geoff Swan at DNR a ring and a helicopter comes out the next day.

GEOFF SWAN: It's still a best source of information. Landholders are always constantly ringing us saying we've got locusts in this area, and that's how we base our spray operations.

DUNCAN SWAN: The level of support they've been giving us has been fantastic and it's really good to see the rural community sort of coming together and being able to work together like that to give us access in being able to spray these swarms.

(from helicopter)

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Geoff and Duncan Swan from Biosecurity Queensland are part of a team searching for and destroying the locust.

Unlike the 1950s, they have the use of helicopters and GPS technology.

RADIO: There's another target just down to our right here.

GEOFF SWAN: We actually have to survey for the locust originally so we do ground survey followed by aerial survey once we've found suitable targets.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Spraying for the locusts is complex; it can take days of preparation.

Biosecurity Queensland officers are surveying this area to work out where the insecticide should be sprayed and where it shouldn't.

DUNCAN SWAN: We're flying quite low to the ground, a couple of metres off the ground, and using the rotor wash to stir the locusts up and then we can visually assess their density to work out whether it is a swarm and once we've done that if we have located a swarm then we can identify the boundaries of that swarm so we can target it for spraying.

RADIO: Spray up to and including that tree lining.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: A fixed wing aerial sprayer has flown in from Emerald 300 kilometres away.

GEOFF SWAN: We actually mark the targets from the air; pass that information to the spray plane.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: This work requires a fair degree of precision to avoid organic farms, protected waterways and properties where stock is being prepared for transport.

Although this area around the Blackall Barcaldon region is mainly grazing land, the idea is to create a huge buffer zone to stop the locusts migrating east and south.

GEOFF SWAN: The priority is to protect that cropping country in the central highlands and Darling Downs.

So we do the work out here so we don't have to do the work there and we're really protecting that resource in the grain country.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Nonetheless grazier Sally Cripps wasn't impressed with the damage the voracious insects did to her sheep property over the past few months.

SALLY CRIPPS, GRAZIER: They really liked our bottle trees for some reason. They chewed right through all of that.

They stripped bark and in people's orchards, you know, they just totally demolished the tree.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Sally Cripps photographed the last locust assault on her property and suspects the insects not only destroyed trees but damaged her pasture as well.

SALLY CRIPPS: We noticed getting our sheep in just recently for lamb marking that there were quite a lot poorer than we expected, even with the deterioration in the pasture.

So just wondering if perhaps it was a big deceptive and they were eating a lot more pasture than we thought they were.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: But the pestilence may have also had some benefits.

SALLY CRIPPS: I don't know if it's a tall fishing tale or what it is but because we're on the Barcoo River here and good fishing holes nearby all the fishermen were telling us that fish were eating grass hoppers.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: So that's some good news at least?

SALLY CRIPPS: Well if you want to go fishing yeah, and we've been pulling some big ones out of the rivers, big yellow belly.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: But it was no laughing matter when the spur throated locust hit the town of Longreach in April.

This species remains active throughout the winter but usually on swarms in its young adult stage before the spring.

The species found further south, the Australian plague locust, lies low over the colder months and is only now beginning to hatch.

And it can multiply much more rapidly than its northern cousin.

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN: The Australian plague locust can actually do four generations each season and each one of those generations can multiply quite significantly in response to good conditions.

So we started with some rainfall, some good rainfall in south-western Queensland, north-western New South Wales before Christmas and then we had considered widespread and repeated rainfall across most of the locust habitat for the following six months. So we had three successive generations each of which multiplied quite significantly on the previous generation.

They then migrated southwards, which is their normal habit, as they move in to areas to put their eggs down in locations where we get winter rainfall.

This is probably one of the best seasons that Australia's eastern grain growers have had for the last decade and unfortunately it means that those grain crops in large extent have got a threat hanging over them from locusts.

(whilst examining maps)

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN: It might be worth putting some aerial surveillance over the area and then we'd come try and come Tipaburra in the first instance.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Chris Adriaansen is the director of the Australian Plague Locust Commission, which overseas management of the pest across state boundaries.

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN: There are very high density egg layings certainly in north-western Victoria and also in the southern Riverina of New South Wales.

There's also some similar high densities in patches of South Australia.

UNKNOWN: There's enough moisture in the ground for them to get through to spring.

You'll see the young hoppers, as they emerge and they will be quite small, maybe only a couple of millimetres long.

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN: It's really only a case of having to wait until they hatch and then also to wait until those nymphs start to aggregate into their highest densities so that the minimum amount of country can be applied with insecticide to be able to deal with the outbreak that we've got.

UNKNOWN: Gee, there's a lot of eggs here, isn't there? There certainly is.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Victorian sheep and grains farmer Geoff Weeks is waiting nervously having experienced in autumn a taste of what he's in for.

GEOFF WEEKS, CROWDEN, CENTRAL VICTORIA: Did a lot of damage to our pasture, we had a lot of grass and all of a sudden it was just like as if it was sprayed with Round Up and we were actually nearly starting to feed our stock.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Geoff Weeks believes most of his property is a nursery for the voracious insect.

GEOFF WEEKS: I would say could be 70 per cent of it; they were laying eggs all over the place, not just on bare ground, they were in the paddocks and, you know, in the pastures as well.

Well we'll wait until October and just see what the hatchings, how extensive they are.

If we have to spray we'll have to spray. We're hoping, you know, we might get a natural cause to wipe them out but I think it looks like we'll have to spray.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Eastern Australia may be facing one of its worst locust plagues in a generation but at least authorities have some warning and farmers are hoping the pestilence can be contained.

CHRIS ADRIAANSEN: The conditions that give rise to a good cropping season and a good grazing season are also the conditions that often lead to most significant locust infestations and outbreaks so it's an unfortunate coincidence of nature.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: But for years we've been praying for rain, we've had a couple of good summers and now we've got this.

DUNCAN SWAN: Yeah, it's always a problem but, you know, what's good for cows is good for locusts.