Grandson Gavin and I are sitting in a Wendy's in Elko. I glance outside and see this very large grasshopper-like insect crawling on the sidewalk. Gavin goes out to take its picture with his phone. He forwards the photo to a friend who "knows bugs," and asks for an identification. Within two minutes the answer comes back. We've just seen a Mormon cricket. Then we notice more of them crawling across the parking lot. When we leave we see hundreds, no thousands, within two blocks.

The next day we learn that the crickets made national news. Photos of people using leaf blowers to clean off their houses and porches appear in newspapers. We discover that the local public works departments are using snowplows to clear the roads of crickets, followed by sanding to prevent cars from sliding on the remains.

When I was telling a friend about the crickets, he asked me, "How do you know their religion?" Here's the story.

In 1847, Brigham Young led a contingent of the Latter-Day Saints into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. In 1848, the grain crops were thriving when a swarm of crickets, in a biblical-type plague, descended on the crops and began to feast.

A large flock of gulls miraculously descended and began gobbling up the crickets. (Incidentally, they aren't really crickets but belong to the katydid family.) The Mormons have erected a statue of a gull in Temple Square in Salt Lake City, seeing the gulls as a deliverance sent by God to save the crops. You can also no doubt guess the Utah state bird.

A more scientific explanation is that the Salt Lake Basin had been home to to hungry gulls for years. 1848 was neither the first nor the last time flocks of gulls ate swarms of crickets. But I'm not L.D.S.

The crickets, while annoying, could serve as a source of food for humans. They once provided a source of protein for indigenous inhabitants of the region. Before you turn up your nose at eating crickets, remember that people eat crawdads, oysters, cow stomachs, and Double Beef Volcano Burritos.

A much bigger problem for the Great Salt Lake City area is not crickets, but the disappearance of the lake itself. I have driven across I-80 west of Salt Lake City at least 20 times, but this was the first year I had difficulty seeing the water, now in the far distance. The lake is fed by three rivers, but the flow has been diminishing because of global climate change, wasteful agricultural practices, and over consumption of water for lawns and swimming pools.

The exposure of the lake bottom has already led to a decline in shore and water birds, including the miraculous gulls. On windy days clouds of lake bottom dust cover the area.

What would save the lake is not a miracle, but timely human intervention. Quick action is needed to limit irrigation, charge fees for water use, and discourage lawns. Given human behavior, that would be even more miraculous than a timely flock of gulls.

~ Roy Christman