This is much higher than the threshold for ranchers to lose money on their cattle. In addition to eating crops such as wheat and barley, they also eat pasture, which makes them directly compete with cattle for food.

“They actually eat grass like cows,” said Pritchard, who is also a rancher himself. “So this is where your pasture basically loses production or productivity, because the grass has disappeared.”

Pritchard said this situation has forced ranchers to consider selling their stock in advance to ensure a return on their investment. He said that in early July, he sold 150 cows for a rancher—the price was just over $1 million—because the grasshoppers consumed their pasture.

Record-setting heat creates perfect conditions

Experts say that the long-term high temperature this summer is the cause of the problem.

Dan Johnson, a professor at Lethbridge University with entomology and pest control expertise, said that grasshoppers thrive at temperatures around 36-37 degrees Celsius.

The female buries the eggs, and these eggs can sleep for several years until the conditions are right for them to hatch.

Johnson said he saw similar explosions in the prairie, where ideal conditions resulted in the number of locusts as high as 150 per square meter.

Prepare for the future

He said that it is too late to do anything to grasshoppers this year, because once they are mature they are difficult to kill.

But he hopes to work with ranchers and farmers like Pritchard to collect samples of grasshoppers in the field so that he can learn more about their migration patterns.

Climate change may also be a factor.Johnson said that if the hot and dry summer in British Columbia continues to extend, the number of grasshoppers will continue to surge.

“If you have more warm sequences, one after another uninterrupted, that’s when they really expand,” he said.