Environment assures that the swarm of cigarrones has dispersed and no damages are expected in Lanzarote

The swarm of African locusts that appeared this Tuesday in Lanzarote, near Caleta de Famara, has dispersed and does not seem dangerous for the island's vineyards and crops, according to the Cabildo's Minister of Environment, Samuel Martín.

"It is important that in the next 48 hours we monitor the evolution of the locust and we ask for the collaboration of the town councils in case they see any swarm," the minister pointed out.

Technicians are pending to check if, as happened in 2004, the locusts that have arrived in Lanzarote from the Sahara are adult specimens, exhausted and with little time left to live or, if on the contrary, they are young with the capacity to reproduce.

The important thing, highlights the minister, is to control that there are no more swarms, "many locusts in the same place", which is why anyone who detects a significant presence of locusts is asked to report it to the Insular Emergency Consortium, to the Environmental agents or to the Cabildo's Agricultural Farm.

Samuel Martín stressed that they will be alert for the next 48 hours, but specifies that the individuals collected by the Environmental agents are not juveniles. Had that been the case, he specifies, it would have been "the most worrying".

The species comes from the Sahara, so it prefers to feed on wheat crops and in Lanzarote it could only attack the fields planted by the hunters' society for birds, so it should not affect agriculture, he indicated. And, in principle, there is no fear for the vineyards, he added.