100,000 ‘duck army’ of China to fight locust swarms in Pakistan

Chinese duck platoons are waiting to be deployed to neighboring Pakistan to fight a swarm of crop-eating pests that threaten regional food security.

At least 100,000 ducks are expected to be sent to Pakistan as early as the second half of this year to combat a desert locust outbreak, according to Lu Lizhi, a senior researcher with the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The ducks are "biological weapons" and can be more effective than a pesticide, said Lu, who is in charge of the project in tandem with a university in Pakistan.

"One duck is able to eat more than 200 locusts a day," Lu said in a telephone interview on Thursday, citing results of experiments to test the ducks' searching and predation capabilities.