Mice plague in Australia: NSW orders poison from India as rodents infect agricultural land

Vast tracts of land in Australia’s New South Wales state are being threatened by a mouse plague, leading to the worst outbreak in decades. According to the Associated Press, millions of rodents have infected the agricultural plains across the state and one family has even blamed mice chewing electrical wires for their house burning down. The state government has described the plague as “absolutely unprecedented” as mice have entered homes, inside containers and even found their way into water tanks. 

Australian Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said, “We’re at a critical point now where if we don’t significantly reduce the number of mice that are in plague proportions by spring, we are facing an absolute economic and social crisis in rural and regional New South Wales”. 

As the NSW Farmers, the state’s top agricultural association, predicted that the plague will wipe more than one billion Australian dollars from the value of the winter crop, the state government ordered 5,000 litres of the banned poison Bromadiolone from India. Marshall said that the government had to go down this path because they need “something that is super strength” in a bid to blast these mice into oblivion. But the federal government has yet to approve the emergency application to use the poison as critics fear that it will not only kill the mice but also animals that feed on them, including wedge-tail eagles and family pets. 

‘They’re in roof cavity, bed…’

The infestation is a cruel blow to farmers in Australia as they recently battered by fires, floods and pandemic disruptions. As per AP, patches of the road are dotted with squashed mice, haystacks are disintegrating due to the rodents that have burrowed deep inside and sidewalks are strewn with dead mice that have eaten poisonous bait. The farmers are dealing with the stench of mice urine and decaying flesh. 

“They’re in the roof cavity of your house. If your house is not well sealed, they’re in bed with you. People are getting bitten in bed,” said Jason Conn, a fifth-generation farmer near Wellington in central New South Wales. Another farmer said that he estimated that he drowned 7,500 mice in a single night last week in a trap he set with a cattle feeding bowl full of water at his farm. Another added that mouse carcasses and excrement in roofs were polluting farmers’ water tanks and leaving people sick. 

Now, locals are hoping for heavy rain to drown the mice in their burrows. They are also hoping that disease and shortage of food would trigger a dramatic population crash as mice feed on themselves, devouring the sick, weak and their own offspring. They are also hoping that winter frosts will help contain the numbers.

(With inputs from AP)