Veronica DeLeon stepped carefully while walking near 14th and Curtis streets Friday in her purple satin high-heeled sandals.
“You just don’t know when they jump in front of you. You’re like ‘Aah! What was that?’ ” she said.
DeLeon is just one person in downtown Denver who has noticed hundreds, if not thousands, of grasshoppers hanging around buildings on 14th and 15th streets between Curtis and Champa.
“They just started (Thursday). So we have no idea where they came from or what they’re doing,” she said.
The new neighbors have been the talk of Brenda Tate’s office.
“You could walk around this building, and they’re all over the place,” Tate said. “I don’t think they’re violent. They don’t have any ninja skills that I’m aware of.”
Insect experts agree there’s no need to fear.
Marco Stoltzfus, youth education manager for the Butterfly Pavilion, thinks the numbers of grasshoppers may have been increased by our warm, wet summer. He added that grasshoppers, which are cold-blooded, may be looking for added warmth generated by the downtown buildings.
“It’s hard to get into the mind of insects sometimes. It depends on what their instincts are telling them to do,” he said.
Researchers at the Butterfly Pavilion say some areas in northeastern Colorado are poised for a large infestation now through the end of August, however they are not predicting a “locust year.”
Good thing, if you ask Derris Miles.
“I was frightened,” Miles said after a grasshopper landed on his shoulder.
“They could be killer grasshoppers. I don’t know,” he joked.
Miles went on to suggest developing some sort of think tank to create a humane solution.
Stoltzfus says the grasshoppers will likely go away on their own by the time the weather gets cooler.
