Posted on 02/07/2021 7:55:51 AM PST by Roman_War_Criminal
Since early 2021 much of regional Australia is experiencing a mouse plague.
The rodents have kept multiplying through the summer, and are expected to continue to do so even through the winter, potentially threatening crops.
Now look at the result! It’s apocalyptic:
Hundreds of thousands of mice are ransacking sheds and houses, getting onto and into everything across NSW, Qld, SA and Victoria, Australia.
The rodents are munching through crops and wiring, and to the horror of home owners they’ve even been found in bags of bread.
The whole district smells of mice.
Why this mouse plague? Rainfall and good harvest last year contributes to allowing the mice to spike in numbers.
“Mice start breeding when they’re six weeks old, and have a litter every 19 to 20 days after that. They can have up to 10 pups per litter, which means the rate of increase is really dramatic,” he said.
“As soon as they have a litter of pups they fall pregnant again. They gestate the next litter while feeding the previous one.”
Farmers around Coonamble were lucky enough to have harvested before the infestation there began increasing in scale. But there is a risk the mice could continue breeding until autumn and threaten the next crop.
During a previous mouse plague in 1984, a farmer was shown on the evening news using a flamethrower to wipe out mice eating his crops.
A good cold snap, or lots of rain will do it. All their holes in the ground get filled up and they die.
Another hope is that when the rodents multiply too quickly, they tend to deplete their food sources, spread disease among each other and start to eat their offspring. That makes the population crash away rapidly. Maybe they should think about sending an army of killer hornets. They do a great job!
Australia, naturally.
Australian mice invasion ping.
Looks like cats will be earning their keep.
XEROX PARC and Steve Jobs to blame.
Well, there goes my breakfast.
I for one welcome our new rodent overlords.
The Lord sent a plague of mice because he ran out of liberals.
Whoa. That looks like exterminator night at a local mall.
Boggy soil full of dead animals, what could go wrong?
That’s how the Sin Nombre Hantavirus spread in the American southwest back in the 1990s, too many mice making too many mouse turds.
It’s been a cool summer. Not hot enough to kill them off. Last year was a good year for wheat so plenty of food for them. Saw a smaller plague back in the nineties. Driving home after night shift there was a regular popping noise under the tyres each time you squashed another rodent. The wife and kids caught 20 mice in one night and we were on the edge of the plague not anywhere near the worst of it.
The big problem was the snakes that followed them in, and I have to assume a boon in mouse population will be followed by a boom in the snake population, and while we had our share of venomous snakes in Louisiana, I do believe the species of snakes in Australia are even more dangerous.
Your last link was so creepy! Too bad the pigs can’t be permitted to eat mice. (Can’t sell a mouse-fed pig.)
Clearly they need more carnivores over there. Cats are pests too but they’re better than mice and way easier to spay :)
Rodents, specifically rats and mice are the second most successful mammals on earth.
We’re #1.
I just saw that Forensic Files episode on Pluto not too long ago. I also remember it from the news.
Ask Fauchi, he's a good bull$hit artist...
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