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Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1101960933666
After the Eighth Plague
(Jerusalem Post)Talya Halkin - Locusts are the eighth biblical plague. Millions of locusts recently clouded entire kilometers in various locations between Eilat and the Dead Sea. "We could have used more serious pesticides with more immediate effects to create instant killing fields," explains Rami Sadeh, director of field experiments and pesticides at the Plant Protection and Inspection Services in Eilat, "but we wanted to use ecologically friendly materials that wouldn't harm nature reserves and enter the food chain of other animals." Sadeh believes we are now seeing the last of the locust swarms. "I really enjoyed it. It was an opportunity to examine a natural phenomenon I believe will not recur for a long time," he said. Currently, there are still swarms dispersed over Sinai, southern Israel and Jordan, and along the Egyptian and Saudi Red Sea coast, but there are no new swarms coming from Africa, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. FAO locust expert Keith Cressman attributes the current locust situation to the climate. In October 2003, two days of extraordinary rainfall in northern Africa yielded 100mm. of rain in areas that usually get 1mm. a year. This year, there followed four simultaneous outbreaks of locusts in Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Sudan.