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Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

theguardian.com

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Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#131

Post by perl4ever »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #50
eknkc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m Turkish and I find it interesting that the US and European cities are dealing with mouse / rat issues. We have tons of cats roaming the streets. I guess that’s the reason but I have ever seen one or maybe 2 live rats in my entire life.

When I visited Athens, the massive colonies of feral cats were very notable. They could take over parks. American culture is specifically oriented toward preventing this kind of thing from happening. A feral cat is judged to be in need of a home. And there is a very widespread popular effort to say that you are doing something immoral if you don't spay your cat -- if a fertile cat did go feral, it might have children…

In the northeastern US, when I was growing up, I don't think there were a lot of predators of cats. People had "outdoor cats" who would stop by for a free meal, but not live inside.

But coyotes and maybe even wolves have become more common. Such that I remember people remarking about how a housecat wouldn't last long if left to roam. The predators may have increased due to other prey becoming more common as well, like turkeys.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#132

Post by bsder »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #23
syntaxing wrote: post #3

Honestly thought it was an exaggerated title but reading the article says otherwise. That’s a lot of mouse. Is it because the habitat is missing the right predators due to climate change?

Can't speak to that particular environment, but the explosion of lyme disease in Northeastern US over the past few decades or so. Lyme disease is passed by deer ticks which largely live off of mice, which have had decades of under-predation and good fortune as suburbanization creates miniature grasslands that are too disjointed to support the predators that should be eating them.

I don't know about elsewhere, but the deer population in Pennsylvania has become quite absurd.

You probably don't need a lot of mice with so many of the 4 foot tall rats known as white tailed deer running around.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#134

Post by jamiek88 »

ackbar03 wrote: post #125
jamiek88 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dog is similar and caught a rat once in the garden. Ever heard a rat scream ? I ran around the corner to see what the commotion was and he had it in his jaws shaking his head violently. Snapped the rats back, then dropped it and walked away. I put the rat out of its misery with a spade then buried it. Talk about adrenaline! But yeah rats scream like a little girl screams. It’s fucking horrifying.

Your adrenaline or the dogs?

Mine! The dog was licking where his balls used to be like nothing happened a few moments later. Way before my heart rate came down, he was napping.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#135

Post by tvphan »

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…

Yeah nah, I live in Melbourne and there are rabbits EVERYWHERE

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#136

Post by fy20 »

Igelau wrote: post #99
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

My grandparents had a West Highland Terrier. Gentle little cream puff of a dog -- just like the foofoo dog you see on Cesar dog food. Except she had this little game she liked to play with the voles in the yard where she'd flip them into the air and fatally gore them with her teeth.

This breed was originally created to hunt small rodents on farms and such.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#137

Post by bjowen »

stubish wrote: post #124
vidanay wrote: post #19

What's the root cause? Not enough birds of prey?

The birds of prey don't seem to like living near people. Rabbits are plentiful and food for foxes, mice hit plague proportions in farming communities, but the eagle, hawk, falcon and owl numbers don't seem to increase to match. Other birds not so much, where we have an order of magnitude more smaller birds in our garden compared to the nearby bush land (both native and introduced).

Also the serial poisoning of birds of prey - prosecutions in Tubbut and Violet Town and reports of it being more widespread.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#138

Post by Ductapemaster »

laurent92 wrote: post #83
hourislate wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the Dingo, which interesting enough was introduced a few thousand years ago and is not native to Australia. Then some time in the 1800's they introduced 24 rabbits because they thought it would be fun to hunt and that didn't turn out to well. And if that wasn't enough they introduced Camels which now number in the millions. I am wondering what's next?

And literally mixomatosis was researched and “created” circa 1850 to get rid of said Australian rabbits. According to my failing memory, it goes like this: In 2 years 95% Australian rabbits died, and 5% were resisting. Obviously the population regrew. And the researcher tried to bring it back home in UK to get rid of the rabbits in his garden. He succeeded... to kill 95% rabbits of England. Which regrew from the resi…

I just learned about this recently. This is the guy who introduced it into the UK population when trying to reduce the population on his estate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul-F%C3%A9lix_Armand-Delille

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#139

Post by mod »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #80
seunosewa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People roast and eat wild rodents like rats as “bush meat” but to my knowledge they don’t eat mice. If we had a plague of mice we would certainly find a way to utilize them.

Separating the digestive system from all those little bodies would be tedious for not a whole lot of gain, a few tens of grams of muscle meat and organs per mouse.

On the TV show "Alive," people were occasionally trapping mice and eating them, and the show would show trivia like how many calories were in the food.

I think it was worth something like 30 calories for a mouse. Virtually nothing.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#140

Post by Perenti »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #45
coldcode wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many cats every house needs to rid it of mice. Given the volume, I doubt there are enough cats in Australia to even make a dent.

Australia actually started a program to kill off feral cat populations a few years ago

These mice plagues are a cyclic phenomena. I remember being in one in 1973, living in a small town in the wheat belt. Australia - land of floods, fires and pest plagues.
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