Her View: Time is now to eradicate Idaho’s most dangerous infestation

Recently the ghost town of Silver City, Idaho, has been making headlines for nonspecter but definitely spooky reasons. The off-the-grid city in Owyhee County (about two hours southwest of Boise) has been invaded by billions of the creepiest crawling things you may ever have the misfortune to see.

Anabrus simplex, more commonly known as Mormon crickets, are neither crickets nor religious — rather, they’re long-horned grasshopper-like insects that famously threatened to destroy Mormon settlers’ crops in the late 1840s until, legend has it, a flock of bulimic seagulls came to the rescue.

These insects can grow up to 3 inches long. They don’t fly (thank goodness) but they do swarm. In an average year, Mormon crickets exist in manageable numbers. On occasion, though, possibly related to weather patterns, they explode into high density populations that can dominate a region for anywhere from a single season to two decades.

Migrating bands make short work of a pasture’s forage plants or a farmland’s cultivated crop. They can travel up to 50 miles in a single season. They pose a real safety hazard when they become roadkill while crossing streets and highways because their collective squished bodies make for slippery, icy-like road conditions. And apparently they smell something awful.

Perhaps most disturbing, though, is what compels them. Mormon crickets are constantly moving forward because if they stop for even a moment they will be attacked from behind and consumed by one of their own.

That’s right, they’re cannibals — cannibalistic katydids. It’s the stuff of nightmares.

Sadly the swarm of Mormon crickets in Silver City is neither the only nor the most troubling infestation currently swelling in the great state of Idaho.

Idaho Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder called this out last week. When asked about the most recent legislative session he responded, “I think my greatest disappointment is how many legislators are willing to follow the direction of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. To me that’s one of the biggest threats we have to our democracy in our state is — we’ve got a small group of people that are very vocal, that are very aggressive towards anyone that doesn’t agree with them.”

Aggressive indeed. The libertarian think tank did not take Winder’s remarks sitting down. Idaho Freedom Foundation president Wayne Hoffman quickly shot back, calling Winder and the Idaho Senate (an entity that is 80 percent Republican) the greatest threat not only to the state but to the nation.

In years past it was easy enough to ignore this fringe group and to see it for what it is — a vocal minority more interested in being obstructive than constructive. Lately, though, the group’s intentional provocations have been rewarded with not only attention but influence. In a post-MAGA world it seems no one wants to risk being outflanked on the right.

When the Idaho Senate narrowly voted to accept $6 million in federal grant money — money approved not by Biden but by the Trump administration — for early learning, the IFF persuaded the Idaho House to leave the money on the table, declaring it part of a government conspiracy to lure preliterate children away from their parents and convert them to some secret, radical LBGTQ agenda.

It would be laughable if it hadn’t been so effective, and at the expense of our children.

It may not be fair to compare the Idaho Freedom Foundation to insects — after all, the insects are just instinctively doing what they must in order to survive. Meanwhile the Idaho Freedom Foundation is actively seeking to destroy anyone and everyone it perceives as “the other” with the reckless abandon of anarchists intent on watching the world burn.

When it comes to Mormon crickets, there are two moderately effective ways to manage the swarms. You can poison them with something called carbaryl, the same stuff used to treat head lice, or you can try to corral them away from your crops by digging ditches and erecting metal barriers.

Managing the pesky Idaho Freedom Foundation is a lot simpler — simply stop inviting them to feast on your fields and watch as in short order they feast on their own.

Stellmon set sail for a three-hour tour on the Palouse in 2001. She is now happily marooned in Moscow with her spouse and five children.