Plague of moths has upside for those with taste for the exotic

Sydney

They are small, brown and hairy, but the millions of bogong moths that are plaguing Sydney are being hailed by some Australians as tasty treats rather than annoying pests.

The moths have descended on the harbour city on a scale not seen for years. They are everywhere - in offices and homes, plastered to the facades of buildings, fluttering around street lights and squashed into carpets. They even become trapped in trains and buses, where schoolchildren delight in swatting them dead.

The moths are on their annual migration from the wide open plains west of the Great Dividing Range to the Australian Alps, on the border with New South Wales and Victoria. After a journey of hundreds of kilometres, they hibernate in caves, huddling together in thick, twitching carpets. They always pass close to Sydney but this year strong westerly winds have driven millions of them into the city itself.

While most Sydneysiders see them as an irritation or as downright disgusting, a hardy few are urging people to tuck in.

'I usually eat them raw,' Australian Museum naturalist Martyn Robinson, one of the chief proponents of moth-munching, said yesterday. 'But if we have people coming round for dinner or I feel like doing something special, I put them in a stir fry or an omelette. They're very nice with chilli oil.'