Horrifying swarm of locusts hits Spanish holiday islands, with officials issuing guidance for tourists
A ‘Keep Calm’ message has been issued to four Spanish holiday spots after swarms of locusts descended on the Canary Islands.
Officials in Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura insist the giant insects pose no danger to the public, but warn they could threaten crops if their numbers turn into a real scourge, as happened 20 years ago.
Videos shared on social media show hundreds of locusts swirling around the countryside.
The insects are believed to have come from Western Sahara following recent hot and humid weather.
The locusts, known locally as the Prickly Cigarrón (Schistocerca gregaria), have been spotted throughout Lanzarote, including in popular tourist areas such as Arrecife, Costa Teguise, Famara, Uga and Tahíche.
Twenty years ago, an invasion of this species ravaged crops and disrupted daily life on the island, with firefighters deployed to certain areas to combat the infestation.
Historically, the locust arrived from the African continent on easterly or southeasterly winds carrying Saharan dust.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it is the most destructive migratory pest in the world and, under certain environmental conditions, can form dense, rapid swarms.
A ‘Keep Calm’ message has been issued to four Spanish holiday spots after swarms of locusts descended on the Canary Islands.
Videos shared on social media show hundreds of locusts swirling around the countryside
The insects are believed to have come from Western Sahara following recent hot and humid weather.
In addition, it has the capacity to destroy crops, since it ingests its weight in food daily.
For example, a one square kilometer swarm can contain up to 80 million adult individuals and has the capacity to consume the same amount of food per day as 35,000 people.
This led it to become one of the accelerators of famines in Africa and the Middle East.
The Lanzarote government has already mobilized its environmental services, which will be vigilant for the next 48 hours. Leaders are confident the swarms will not turn into an epidemic.
“The next two days will be decisive. If they are adult specimens that arrive exhausted, they will die and nothing will happen.
“If we see copulations, that would mean they are reproducing. We will have to see it between this afternoon and tomorrow,” declared the head of Environment of the Cabildo, Francisco Fabelo.
“We already experienced this in 2004 and at the end of the 80s there was another similar episode.
“In both cases it was very striking, with specimens all over the roads but they did not cause any damage indoors,” he added.
The Canary Islands experienced one of the most serious locust episodes in October 1958, when large swarms from Africa devastated crops on the islands and, in particular, in the south of Tenerife, in municipalities such as Arico, Fasnia, Granadilla de Abona and the Güímar valley.
Tomato and potato plantations suffered extensive damage and the plague forced the mobilization of Ministry of Agriculture planes to carry out aerial fumigations, while residents and farmers attempted to combat the insects from the ground with rudimentary methods such as bonfires, noise or poison bait.
A similar episode had already occurred in 1954, when another swarm devastated more than 10,000 hectares of crops on the islands.
The islands’ agricultural leaders say they do not fear another repeat and stressed that the islands have the means to combat the problem.
The general secretary of the Association of Farmers and Breeders of the Canary Islands (Asaga), Theo Hernando said: “It is common for episodes of winds from Africa, such as those brought by the mist, to have specimens of locusts.
They are blown away by the wind and as long as they are isolated cases, there is no problem.
“They arrive very weakened, they are not able to settle or reproduce. Nature itself takes its course and they often end up being preyed upon by birds.
