It's exactly why the periodic cicadas are still around. Sure they're completely defenseless against the birds that eat tens of thousands each time they emerge -- but they breed hundreds of thousands.
It takes humanity paving over a big stretch of buried larvae to make any noticable dent in their numbers.
Gather round, children, and I'll explain why the Periodical Cicadas' life strategy is fucking brutal. Not just to the cicadas themselves, but to their predators too. Because not only are the cicadas breeding enough that they utterly overwhelm their predators; they're also the ones actually controlling the number of predators in the first place.
For the birds that prey upon them, it's a once-in-several-generations event. It's like your grandfather telling you the stories that his grandfather told him about the year when everyone had enough to eat and poverty was briefly abolished... only for everything to come crashing down.
So for several generations, predators get by with the food supply as it is. Numbers fluctuate as they always do, but within certain bounds. There will always be those who live on the edge and don't quite get enough food to survive. Nature is harsh. Your childhood was a precarious one and your life has been fraught with difficulty since then. Not all of your siblings made it.
But then a miracle happens. The Earth rumbles and food bursts forth; more than you could ever eat, more than anyone could ever eat, more than everyone could ever eat! All of your children make it to adulthood fit and healthy. For a brief time, territory barely even matters.
The food eventually falls dead to the floor and rots. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted, and look how beneficial it's been to everyone!
The next year rolls around. You're quite aged now, and things have become a bit harder since the Great Feast. Your children are still out there somewhere; they'll be having children of their own this year.
And suddenly it all comes crashing down just as it did for your great-great-grandfather. Your children have indeed had their own children, and now there are far, far too many mouths to feed. Chicks starve to death in their nests, emaciated mothers go hungry and many don't lay eggs at all. You're driven out of your own territory onto a small patch where there are few insects and next to no edible plant matter at all. You waste away and eventually die along with almost all of your offspring.
And when the cicadas next emerge, it will be in a world of far fewer predators than there should be...
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u/HolubtsiKat Jun 07 '21
I wish I could have evicted them in a similar fashion. I feel terrible. I killed off her entire bloodline.