The menace of a potential plague looms over four popular vacation destinations in Spain. Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Fuerteventura have recently witnessed swarms of locusts descending. Although the harmless short-horned grasshoppers do not pose a direct threat to humans, they could endanger agriculture, particularly vineyards, if their numbers escalate to plague levels as seen two decades ago.
Social media has been flooded with videos capturing hundreds of locusts swarming the rural areas. The influx of these insects from the western Sahara can be attributed to recent warm and wet weather conditions. Lanzarote, including well-known tourist spots like Arrecife, Costa Teguise, Famara, Uga, and Tahíche, has been significantly impacted.
Similar swarms have been reported on other Canary Islands, notably in the northern region of Tenerife. A previous locust infestation in Lanzarote two decades ago caused widespread devastation to crops and daily life, necessitating the intervention of firefighting teams to eradicate them.
Throughout history, locusts have traveled from Africa to various regions, carried by winds from the east along with Sahara Desert dust particles. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) considers locusts as the most destructive migratory pests globally, capable of forming dense and highly mobile swarms in response to environmental cues.
These voracious insects have the ability to consume their weight in food daily, with a swarm covering one square kilometer potentially devouring as much food as 35,000 people in a day. The government of Lanzarote has activated environmental services to monitor the situation closely for the next 48 hours, expressing confidence that the swarms will not evolve into a full-blown plague.
Francisco Fabelo, the head of the Environment of the Cabildo, emphasized the importance of the next two days in determining the locusts’ fate and reproductive activity. Past experiences in 2004 and the late eighties highlighted the disruptive nature of locusts in the region but did not result in significant damage.
In a notorious incident in October 1958, the Canary Islands endured a severe desert locust invasion, causing widespread crop destruction, especially in southern Tenerife. Residents and farmers resorted to various methods, including aerial fumigation and ground-based interventions, to combat the locust swarms.
Despite historical challenges, agricultural leaders in the Canary Islands remain confident in their ability to address potential locust outbreaks effectively and mitigate any adverse impacts on crops and livelihoods.
