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An "air force" of three "squadrons" of starlings will be bred in artificial nests in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to help combat a plague of locusts there, a senior official said yesterday.

The birds will be stationed on the north side of the Tianshan Mountains, the Yili River valley and the northwest part of the Junggar Basin, all of which are prone to attack by the insects, Mu Chen, director of the Xinjiang headquarters of locust and mouse control, said.

Li Jun, a locust-control expert with the Xinjiang department of animal husbandry, said damage to pasture areas will be reduced by 70 percent once the starlings are introduced.

And that will save the region some 30 million yuan ($4 million) in the first year alone, he said.

Xinjiang is one of the regions that suffers most from locust attacks, with more than 3 million hectares of pasture damaged every year.

In response, biologists suggested the use of starlings, as they feed on locusts and can nest on simple piles of stones and rocks.

"Using starlings is the best natural way to control locusts," Li said.

And the cost of building nests from piles of stones is minimal, he said.

In comparison, to spray 27,000 hectares of pasture with pesticide would cost 900,000 yuan, Li said.

Also, the birds are better than pesticides at killing locusts, and they don't cause any pollution, he said.

Some 4 million starlings inhabit Xinjiang, effectively safeguarding 133,300 hectares of pasture, or 20 percent of the area hit by locusts.

It takes about 300 starlings to "protect" one hectare of grassland, Li said.

Over the years, the local government has invested huge amounts of financial and human resources to fight locusts. But years of using pesticide have caused serious pollution to pasture lands, where millions of herdsmen live, he said.

Chickens have been used in the past to eat the locusts, but they proved ineffective.

The original idea to use starlings came from a herdsman from the Kazakh ethnic group more than a decade ago, after they noticed the birds flocking whenever the locusts appeared.

China Daily-Xinhua

(China Daily 08/03/2007 page5)