Mormon Crickets are continuing to march all over Northern Nevada.

At least a couple thousand of them have taken over parts of the Animal Ark Wildlife Sanctuary since last Friday.

Due to many Mormon Crickets being around animals, the staff decided to close the park to the public on Tuesday.

“They do make our animals sick if they eat too many, so we kind of want to move our animals away from the Mormon Crickets if we can, to prevent them from eating them, and then get the animals that don’t want to be near them away from them if we can as well. So being closed allows us to put the animals in the best location,” said Theresa Owens, Executive Director for Animal Ark Wildlife Sanctuary.

Owens also says that some Mormon Crickets can carry a gut parasite.

Staff members spent time today checking in on different animals throughout the day to see if any of them had gotten sick.

The park being closed also gave the Animal Ark team a chance to work on maintenance and administrative work.

Although being closed on a regular business day is never ideal, staff members say that support from the community helps them a lot whenever they have to close.

“I mean everything that we do admission wise and gift shop wise goes back to the animals, but we also have wonderful donors and adoptive parents that kind of help bridge the gap in a lot of those ways as well, so it would be great to be open as much as we can, but we also have wonderful support from the community that supplements as needed,” said Annie Kyte, Guest Services Manager for Animal Ark Wildlife Sanctuary.

Animal Ark has not yet announced whether or not they will be open on Wednesday.

If you want to check, you can visit their website www.animalark.org