Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia • Hacker News Board

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#111

Post by prawn » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:31 AM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #20

"He said the company's six qualified pilots usually worked in pairs on mice baiting jobs but he had baited 184 hectares with a single drone during one night's operation. “If you need to drive over it to spread mouse bait, you lose $35 of grain per hectare with wheels running over it,” https://www.facebook.com/donecommander/

I visited Flinders Island in South Australia on a cruise last month, and they are about to begin a massive campaign to airdrop literally tonnes of poison baits to kill the introduced rodents, then trap and kill the feral cats. All at great federal expense.

They think that mice were reintroduced accidentally by campers, when mice stowed away in camping gear. I was standing there thinking that they could very easily spend millions to eradicate the population only to have it reintroduced intentionally or in another accident six months later.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#112

Post by DecoPerson » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:33 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #96

0xfaded wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia feral cats are culled since they kill the native animals. There's even a guy that skins them and turns then into stubby holders. https://youtu.be/VaB9J8JHVxI

I'm always surprised that cats are able to dominate ecosystems like this. You'd think a local apex predator would have filled that niche and been better adapted to the environment.

Marsupial lions were believed to fill this gap in the food chain. Unfortunately, they died out 60,000 years ago. Now cats and foxes are hunting native species, some faster than is sustainable. Eventually an equilibrium will be found, where the wild cat and fox populations can’t be sustained due to over-hunting, but it will likely come at the cost of many native species disappearing.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#113

Post by stubish » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #96

0xfaded wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia feral cats are culled since they kill the native animals. There's even a guy that skins them and turns then into stubby holders. https://youtu.be/VaB9J8JHVxI

I'm always surprised that cats are able to dominate ecosystems like this. You'd think a local apex predator would have filled that niche and been better adapted to the environment.

Australia's birds never had a local predator like the cat. They just had to keep an eye on the sky for birds of prey and maybe snakes.

It seems that efficient hunters are quite rare to evolve, as there have been lots of ecosystems totally turned on their head with the arrival of a new predator. Stoats, foxes, house cats have all found niches in ecosystems unfilled for hundreds of thousands of years and wiped out many local species. Or maybe the problem is that they are too good, and if left to themselves they would decimate their prey to the point they can't sustain their own numbers and die out; in the long term predators need to exist in an equilibrium.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#114

Post by misterpigs » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

Shawn Woods has a YouTube channel dedicated to trapping mice and other rodents. Most of his traps are homemade and don't require uncommon materials. A bucket, ramp, and water does the trick a lot of the time. https://www.youtube.com/user/historichunter

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#115

Post by xeromal » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

mncharity wrote: post #68

clairity wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The way they do it is the dog grabs the rat in it's mouth and shakes its head wildly." my dog is a terrier/spitz mix and shows this behavior in play (from the terrier side, the spitz side just makes her pretty =). she'll grab a stick or other small item and shake it wildly while bucking about. most people think it's hilarious until i tell them why she does it. =D

Years back I worked on a "configure a dog" educational interactive. IIRC, dogs share a common hunting sequence of behaviors, and some of their domesticated diversity stems from being able to genetically adjust the strength of those behaviors. So a retriever for instance, has the "bite hard" and "shake it" dialed down, and the "carry it home" dialed up.

Sounds like an RPG. haha

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#116

Post by danieltillett » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:54 AM UTC

Something I have always found insane is all the regulations and paperwork hurdles around killing mice in labs. Want to kill 10 mice humanely in a lab then you need to fill out a 60 page report, send it off to an ethics committee for their opinion, and then wait 3 months. Want to kill a few hundred million mice in the wild with a poison that will result is a slow and painful death - go for it.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#117

Post by stubish » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

bradrn wrote: post #25

stareatgoats wrote: post #5

This seems to be a recurring occurrence in Australia. China is the other country to experience this with some regularity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_plagues_in_Australia Interestingly, Australia was home to another, similar explosion of small mammals with high reproductive rates and no or few natural enemies: The rabbit plagues. This seems however largely to have been contained with the release of several vi…

I’m not sure ‘contained’ is quite the right word to use here. Perhaps populations might be less than what they used to be, but where I live in Sydney, you can barely walk across the road without seeing at least a couple of rabbits. We certainly see more of them than we do of wallabies, possums or any other of the stereotypical Australian animals.

The foxes were keeping the rabbits in check here. Neighbor killed the local foxes, saving their chickens and the smaller marsupials. But the biggest winner was the rabbits where we have dozens and before saw none.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#118

Post by xeromal » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:57 AM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #13

inglor_cz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am weird enough to see an optimalization problem in the video. How many dogs are too many? Obviously, two are better than one, but fifty isn't better than twenty. Just saying. Also, the comment saying "that is why dogs like squeaking toys" is spot on, though the idea is probably uncomfortable to regular dog owners.

You can also tell that some of the dogs are way more "into it" than others. It's a typical pareto distribution. 20% of the dogs are killing 80% of the rats.

yeah, the scrawny white dog was definitely carrying the team

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#119

Post by dwd » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #43

joncrane wrote: post #2

When I read that article, all I could think of was this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Pyu-Cj0gg (In case you're sensitive, it's farmers using pitchforks to turn soil in a fallow or recently harvested field that is ridden with rats, which flushes the rats. There are a handful of ratting dogs milling about which immediately chase and kill the rats. The way they do it is the dog grabs the rat in it's mouth an…

Or this guy, who uses trained mink and dogs for rat (and muskrat) control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvzZLI04_is

I've been ferreting for rabbits and the nets do most of the work, with the ferrets popping out later looking bemused after not catching anything. But those minks are insanely fast and brutal.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#120

Post by XorNot » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #106

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pound for pound, it's hard to think of a more effective hunter than a cat. Their skill set is absurd. Absolutely silent, leap multiple times their body length, jaws & claws, climb, extremely agile / flexible and fast.

>Pound for pound, it's hard to think of a more effective hunter than a cat. Owls. The larger ones will kill even cats.

Owls aren't as prolific though if pest control is your goal. A cat will happily kill a dozen mice and eat exactly one. They are adorable murder-machines.