Residents of an island in Washington are facing an unprecedented invasion of millions of caterpillars

• The population of Western Tent Caterpillars spikes every nine years in the Pacific Northwest.
• But experts say this spike is exceptionally high due to a warmer drought season and other factors.
• "They go up your neck and in your pants and everything else," one resident told a local news station.

Residents of a small community off the Washington coast are facing a challenge of unprecedented scale this summer: Millions of caterpillars are taking over their island.

"You can see them writhing in the grass, and you can see them on the walls of my house," resident Randy Rinehart told King5, a local news station based in nearby Seattle. "They go up your neck and in your pants and everything else."

Western Tent Caterpillars tend to peak on Guemes Island and elsewhere in the region about every nine years, according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources, meaning long-time residents are no strangers to the creepy crawlers making themselves comfortable.

But experts say the sheer volume of caterpillars this cycle is unprecedented.

"I have never seen anything like this in Washington," Glenn Kohler, a forest entomologist at the Washington Department of Natural Resources, told King5. "And I've been with DNR for 15 years."

Residents report having to sweep the creatures off their porches and sidewalks daily. 

"Oh my God!" King5 reporter Mimi Jung exclaimed after stepping out of a car on Guemes Island, finding the ground covered by caterpillars. "They're all over the place."

The huge number of caterpillars this year is likely due to three ecological factors, Kohler told King5: a lack of predators, a lack of viruses, and a warmer drought season. 

 

To top it all off, Guemes Island residents can't look forward to a boom in beautiful, vibrant butterflies later this summer either. According to the Washington Department of Natural Resources, they will see an onslaught of brown moths instead.