South Carolina residents confuse cicadas' mating calls for warning sirens

NEWBERRY COUNTY, SC (WACH) -- Calls of cicadas are filling the air in parts of South Carolina especially in like counties Newberry and Saluda. The Newberry County Sheriff’s Office said people that have been calling the office about sirens or roars that it's just the sound of nature.

“It does sound like siren; it sounds like aliens,” said Didi of Evans Georgia.

The sound of cicadas. The Newberry County Sheriff’s office told us it’s been causing some confusion and they’ve been getting flooded with calls from people thinking the sounds are sirens.

“We have serval people the ones that are more concerned think it’s a warning siren,” said Sheriff Lee Foster of Newberry County.

Sheriff Lee Foster shared he is experiencing the same thing the people calling are.

“It happened my house, they came up out of the ground it’s incredible how many there was, and another thing is our dog loves to eat them,” said Foster.

The male cicadas make this sound to mate with the females. It’s all a part of nature.

“When the males are singing or coursing, uh, it's, it's pretty loud if you're close by and it's pretty consistent,” said Eric Benson, Entomologist at Clemson University. He added, of course they're only going to sing for a couple of weeks. So, they're going to, they're going to take advantage of the time that they have.”

Sarah Weinberg in Saluda posted this video on Tik-Tok showing her unwanted new neighbors.

“They seem to really like our gazebo I can’t figure out why, but they continually taken it over,” said Weinberg.

She told us she has called an exterminator. “We called our exterminator our pest control we use on our property, and they said there’s nothing that they can do,” said Weinberg. She added, “we just have to ride it out.”

Benson explains there’s nothing you can do but let nature take its course.

“You can reasonably stray to get rid of all these cicadas, so you are spending a lot of time and money,’ said Benson.

If you harm the cicadas, you could harm other things in nature.

“They are pretty large and scout insect it takes a lot to kill them, but it doesn’t take much to kill fireflies, butterflies, or many of the other beneficial insect,” said Benson.

Sheriff Foster wants people to understand 2024 is just an odd year.