Management of Grasshopper Populations Since antiquity, grasshoppers have been recognized as sporadically severe pests of crops and grazing areas. Over the centuries man has used many tactics to save plants and ininin-dze subsequent economic, food re- source, and soil erosion losses caused by these insects. Approaches to grasshopper management and degrees of success have varied considerably through time and across cultures. Here we will address orfly those aspects of grasshopper problems and control methodology per- tinent to New Mexico or the Southwest. History of Grasshopper Problems in New Mexico In North America, grasshoppers were recognized as pests by certain Indian tribes. The Navajo of the desert Southwest accurately observed that grasshopper out- breaks were often associated with drought and that female grasshoppers laid their eggs in the soil (Wyman and Bailey, 1964). While songs, prayers, and mutilation of ceremonial grasshoppers were purported to drive the pests from the Indians' com and vegetable fields, the Navajo also used certain plant concoctions to combat grasshoppers (Wyman and Bailey, 1952). Extracts of Oxytropis lam- bertii Pursh, purple locoweed, and Phlox stansburyi (Torr.) Heller, a flowering perennial, were sprinkled on corn to protect the crop from grasshoppers. No data are available as to the efficacy of either preparation. Perhaps because of the destructiveness of these in- sects, Navajo folklore credited grasshoppers as dis- guises for ghosts (Wyman et al., 1942), tools ofretribution for witches (Kluckhohn, 1944), or causes for human maladies such as nosebleeds in children (Wyman and Bailey, 1964). While some Plains Indian tribes gathered grasshoppers for human food during fan-dnes, the Na- vajo seem to have considered grasshoppers with suspi- cion; they even regarded com and beans tainted with grasshopper frass and secretions as poisonous (Newcomb, 1940). Among non-Indian cultures and communities estab- lished in New Mexico since the 1500s, subsistence farming was common throughout the state. Drought and grasshoppers were undoubtedly factors in crop produc- tion, livestock grazing, establishment and growth of human communities, hunting ranges, and local econo- mies in this state just as they were in other parts of the West (Briggs, 1934). However, writtenrecords forgrass- hopper problems in New Mexico prior to 1850 are mostly anecdotal and even those are difficult to locate. The comments of Jacob Fowler (with original spell- ings; Coues, ed., 1898) in Ms journal for 1821-1822 are probablyrepresentativeof grasshoppers'impactonearly residents and travelers in what we now know as New Mexico: "We Heare found the people extremly poor, and Bread Stuff Coud not be Head amongest them as the Said the grass hopers Head Eat up all their grain for the last two years ... We found them Eaqually Scarce of meet ... We must Soon leave this Reeched place  ...... In 1868 flying swarms of the mysterious Melanoplus sprelus (Uhler) got the attention of New Mexico resi- dents and certain visiting scientists (Scudder and Cockerell, 1904). These and other M. spretus outbreaks in the Rockies during the late 1860s resulted in the establishment ofthe U.S. Entomological Commissionin 1877 to investigate ft problem (Capinera and Sechrist, 1982b). In Ns report to this commission, Packard stated the pest "seemed to have extended [its range] farther south than [in] any year before or since." As ex-Gover- nor Amy informed the Commission, the grasshoppers flew at least 140 miles south of Santa Fe; this would be in the vicinity of Ft. Craig on the Rio Grande in Socorro County. This large flight of spretus so far south and at such low elevations apparently was unusual; collection records from early grasshopper specialists traveling in northern New Mexico suggest that spretus was found in Taos, Rio Arriba, Colfax, Santa Fe, and parts of Bema- lillo and Valencia Counties from at least 1865 through 1877. Whether or not these southern populations died out after 1877 is a mystery. Cockerell noted that nothing had been seen of the species in New Mexico from 1893 through at least 1902 (Scudder and Cockerell, 1904); indeed, Metanoplus spretus seems to have become ex- tinct in North America since its great period of destruc- tion and mass movements from 1865 to 18 85. It has not been collected again by entomologists working in any of the western states in nearly a century. Whether the species actually became extinct or whether it is a poly- morphic form of another species, perhaps M. sanguinipes, remains to be seen (Brooks, 1958; Gurney and Brooks, 1959). Lockwood and DeBrey (1990) have postulated that this species may have become extinct due to local- ized destruction of the insect's critical habitat and the introduction of exotic species through agriculture and economic development of the West. In the 20th century, the first documented grasshopper plagues in the new state of New Mexico occurred in 1927. A staff writer with the New Mexico Agricultural College noted that a mechanical hopper dozer was used to collect the pests from alfalfa near Socorro (Anon., 1927). Results were not reported. By the early 1930s, numbers of pest grasshoppers were increasing steadily during a prolonged drought in several northern counties of the state (Anon., 1932; Anon., 1934a); counts in San Juan County ranged from