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In Australia there are some of the most fearsome creatures in the world. But none is more destructive than the humble house mouse, a plague of which sinks through vast areas of crop fields and terrorizes the peasants.
Farmers in New South Wales, the hardest-hit state, warned that furry creatures could cost them $ 1 billion ($ 765 million) in lost crops and poison baits this season. Residents in rural towns have been waging a six-month battle against the army of wild mice, which has gnawed on the wiring of appliances, supplying contaminated water and even bitten patients in hospital beds.
Scientists said the plague was reinforced by favorable weather conditions after years drought and the second largest grain crop in the country.
State authorities have proposed “napalming” mice by allowing farmers to use bromadiolone poison against mice, which has sparked a furious debate about its environmental impact.
A US $ 50 million mouse control package unveiled this week includes plans to develop “genetic” technology to sterilize mice, a wild species that arrived in Australia in the first fleet.
“Mice are everywhere. A few weeks ago, they bit the cables in our dishwasher and caused a flood, ”said Xavier Martin, a farmer who lives near Gunnedah, a town in northeastern New South Wales. “And even as we talk now, I can hear them running across the roof and walls.”
He said the plague threatened their winter crops as well as the mental health of farmers, who have absorbed the devastating impacts of drought, forest fires, floods and Covid-19 in recent years.
Martin, who is vice chairman of the NSW Farmers Press Group, said he opposed bromadiolone use because of concerns that it could kill wildlife that eats mice that have died due to secondary poisoning.
However, the NSW government has sought “urgent approval” from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to allow farmers to use bromadiolone, a poison that kills by preventing blood clotting.
“It will be the equivalent of napalming mice across rural NSW,” said Adam Marshall, NSW’s Minister of Agriculture.
Dramatic images showing mice outnumbering warehouses, fields and grain houses have elevated the state government’s political stakes. The mouse plague not only has costly financial implications for farmers, but also endangers public health.
“No one ever forgets about living with a mouse plague,” said Steve Henry, a mouse expert at the Australian scientific research agency Csiro. “They go into your house, all the closets, the bed and the pantry, literally everywhere.”
Mouse urine could spread serious diseases to humans, including leptospirosis and lymphocytic choriomeningitis, which could cause symptoms similar to meningitis, he added.
For Terry and Nicole Klante, grain producers who live near Dubbo, New South Wales, the risk of their children and staff suffering from illness is a concern.
“Everything in our workshops has been literally touched by the mice, so we have to repeat to the staff to wash their hands because the potential to get sick is in everything we touch,” Nicole said.
Despite catching and killing thousands of mice every day, they keep coming, he said.
Mice reproduce rapidly. A single pair of mice can create 500 puppies in a breeding season, which usually lasts from summer to fall, Henry said.
It is difficult to predict how long a mouse plague will last because it can end abruptly as a result of disease, food shortages and cannibalism.
“When they run out of food, the mice start to ignite the sick and the weak, they take baby mice and the population crashes very quickly,” Henry said.
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