For decades, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has been spraying pesticides across millions of acres of land to kill grasshoppers, which munch away at the grazing grounds cattle rely on.
Now, the federal agency has to prioritize non-chemical methods of pest control, a federal court in Oregon ruled on Aug. 22, 2025. The court’s ruling also requires the government to be more open with the public about when and where it’s spraying pesticides.
“They can kill other rangeland insects, not just grasshoppers,” said Sharon Selvaggio with the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group that helped bring the lawsuit to limit pesticide use. “Multiple bumblebee species in the West are already at risk. They've already disappeared from places that they used to occupy.”
The ruling helps protect bees, butterflies and wildlife, like the greater sage grouse, that eat insects, said Selvaggio. She added that reining in pesticide use comes at a critical time.
“Because what we're starting to see is a biodiversity crisis,” she continued. “And in the West and western rangelands, we see it in declining grassland birds, we see it in declining bumblebee species.”
The USDA has two years to complete a new Environmental Impact Statement of its western spray program.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
