Squeezing a Buck From Cicada Buzz

'Non-Economic Species' Inspires Novelties

A calm, plain-spoken voice comes on the radio.

"We're here for you, the affected refugee," says Jim Mathias, the mayor of Ocean City, Md. "There is no shame in accepting help from a neighbor."

He is offering refuge from periodical cicadas in the hotels of Ocean City, where he hopes you will plunk down a few bucks on mini-golf. It's a paid advertisement, recorded Monday and soon to be broadcast on local radio stations.

First came the billions of bugs. Now comes the business opportunism.

Coming off years dominated by recession and terrorism and war, the emergence of the cicadas has created a rare opportunity for some local businesses. Now they can profit from a subject that has Washington buzzing, literally and figuratively.

T-shirts about the Washington sniper attacks: offensive. T-shirts about insects that emerge by the billions for a few weeks, only to disappear for another 17 years: a gold mine.

Ask local actor Jason Saffer, who operates a Web site selling "Cicada Couture" T-shirts. He said yesterday that more than a thousand have been sold, at $19.99 each.

Or ask Dennis Ray, managing designer for Rockville-based Nature's Creations Inc. He issued a news release yesterday for "a first in the jewelry world, the Cicada Shell Pin." Ray said he thinks the leftover husks of the insects are oddly beautiful, or "wicked awesome," in his words. He began collecting them off the ground in Georgetown when they started emerging two weeks ago. He dips each in a copper coating, burnishes it to a greenish patina, attaches a pin and charges $36 a pop.

"Each one is different," he said in an interview yesterday. "They're surreal looking. It's a fantastic circle of life phenomenon."

Ray sold the first 20 he made within an hour at an exhibition on the West Coast. Now he's collecting cicada shells as fast as he can; once the emergence ends, so does his supply (200 are now complete).