Plague of mice ravages eastern Australia
Mice in the cabinets. Mice in the streets. Thousands upon thousands of mice in the barn, pooping so much it takes six hours to clean up their waste. These are scenes from Queensland and New South Wales, where an out-of-control mouse infestation is making life miserable for farmers, grocers and other citizens of the eastern Australian states. One farmer described the rodent frenzy as “an absolute plague,” more severe than anything locals have seen in decades.
Some farmers have already lost entire grain harvests to the rampaging mice, according to local media reports, while hotels have had to close because they can’t keep the critters out of the rooms. Staff at a grocery store in a small town northwest of Sydney reported catching as many as 600 mice a night. So far at least three people have visited the hospital with rodent bites. A researcher at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation said that the infestation is likely the result of an unusually large grain harvest, drawing more hungry mice to the area’s farms earlier in the season than usual.
Locals have responded by laying extra traps, while one farmer in Queensland was given permission to use a drone to drop poison bait on the mice from above. Alan Brown, a farmer from the Wagga Wagga, said that the plague was likely just beginning, considering the rapid pace of breeding in mice. BRANDON SPECKTOR