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The Rocky Mountain Locust has been extinct for over 130 years with the last great swarm in 1877.

So it is said. A recent book by University of Wyoming entomologist, Dr. Jeffry Lockwood, would belie that contention, appropriately titled: Locust. It is a study of that "extinction" with a surprising ending:

Among the grasshoppers that I have collected in Yellowstone National Park, I remember one female with spectacularly long wings. Of course, females are very difficult to identify, but she was officially recorded as Melanoplus bruneri, the closest living relative of Melanoplus spretus. I may have been wrong in my classification of that long-winged female, but mistaken identities are sometimes a saving grace for individuals whose existence may not be welcomed. Recently, I captured several similar individuals from a meadow in the park. They also appeared to be M. bruneri, although they lacked the distinctive yellow coloration on the underside that typifies this species. I think that I know who they were, so I released them back into the field. Because I did not remove them from the park, their identities and location need not be reported to the authorities.

Lockwood is your basic gay greenie deep ecologist with a passion for destroying modern civilization in the name of halting runaway "global warming." He just aches to see great clouds of trillions of locusts wrecking destruction (never mind that their numbers were augmented by the destruction of so many bison). The keys to restraining them since were overpopulated bison and elk in that part of the country trampling their egg cases along streams. Now that the government has released wolves and fenced off the streams in the name of "environmental protection" who knows what will happen?

Anything can happen, and disaster probably will happen; sometime somewhere.
We are all too comfortable with our affluent lifestyles.
But I will be prepared as I can be, but not sit up at night worrying too much.
I will spend my energy more on the political process. That is where we can prevent man made disasters.
Not a lot I can do to prevent the Yellowstone volcano from taking out much of the US.
But I can have influence over Marxists taking over our country.