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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

#51

Post by thaumasiotes »

hourislate wrote: post #11
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…

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?

> the Dingo, which interesting enough was introduced a few thousand years ago and is not native to Australia.

This is a pretty stunning standard. By this standard, most of Africa has no native population. Most life anywhere would not qualify as "native".

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#52

Post by yumraj »

ourcat wrote: post #36

I wonder if this is in any way related to the Australian Government deciding in 2015 to try to kill two million feral cats by 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/magazine/australia-cat-ki...

That reminds me of CCP/Mao deciding to kill Sparrows to save grains, only to find that they eat insects which left unchecked led to much more damage.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

https://www.licas.news/2020/10/07/when-communist-china-waged...

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#53

Post by sizzzzlerz »

tmp538394722 wrote: post #27
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/

“Bait” means poison, right?

I'd assume so. Which means the first application would kill 80% of the mice, maybe more. That'd would leave a whole bunch of rotting mice bodies to putrify and smell and provide a poisonous feast to birds and other scavangers. A second application might knock off 60%. Then, with each application and multiple generations of mice, you'd end up with mice that are immune. Ultimately, you end up with totally ineffective bait.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#54

Post by vmladenov »

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…

My dog does this to his stuffed animals, blankets, etc. The agility of the motion is incredible.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#55

Post by nyolfen »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #51
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?

> the Dingo, which interesting enough was introduced a few thousand years ago and is not native to Australia. This is a pretty stunning standard. By this standard, most of Africa has no native population. Most life anywhere would not qualify as "native".

a few thousand years is not that long; humans have been in africa for millions of years and australia for at least 45k. interestingly the dingo looks very similar to many other breeds of feral dogs across the world, from the carolina dog on the american atlantic coast to the jungle-dwelling new guinea singing dog. its form is something like the primordial state of c. familiaris, with probable climactic adaptations.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#56

Post by quesera »

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.

Another theory re: Lyme disease is that the reforestation of old farmlands supports a higher deer population. Deer (or other large hosts: bear, moose, etc) are an essential part of the deer tick lifecycle, which in turn supports the spread of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

New England has more forest area today than it has since the 1700s.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#57

Post by thaumasiotes »

nyolfen wrote: post #55
thaumasiotes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Dingo, which interesting enough was introduced a few thousand years ago and is not native to Australia. This is a pretty stunning standard. By this standard, most of Africa has no native population. Most life anywhere would not qualify as "native".

a few thousand years is not that long; humans have been in africa for millions of years and australia for at least 45k. interestingly the dingo looks very similar to many other breeds of feral dogs across the world, from the carolina dog on the american atlantic coast to the jungle-dwelling new guinea singing dog. its form is something like the primordial state of c. familiaris, with probable climactic adaptations.

Well, humans are only considered to date back about 200,000 years, so "millions of years" is stretching it.

Hominids have been in Africa for millions of years, but the Bantu Expansion is just a few thousand years old. It is younger than recorded history -- we have Egyptian records of the peoples to their south, with whom they traded; those people are extinct today. The Bantus reached South Africa at about the same time Europeans did! They colonized it much more successfully, though, largely wiping out the Khoisan who were there before.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#58

Post by belorn »

coldcode wrote: post #4
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…

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.

Mice are instinctually afraid of the smell of cats, so the cat would not need to actually kill them to get the desired effect.

In this case however when we have hundreds of new mice each day, the fear effect and eating of mice would likely just be a drop in the bucket. The mice from nearby farmland and forests are fleeing starvation. A single house can collect and kill thousands a week and still more are coming, and the flood of mice can start up from apparently nowhere if you live near such areas. The only good thing is that it will stop at some point, and the professional traps can help to keep the situation at bay.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#59

Post by alistairSH »

clairity wrote: post #26
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…

> "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 7lb cotton ball Maltese does the same thing. It's hilarious. He also loves to chase squirrels. Same dog yelped like he was being flayed alive when a neighborhood cat playfully swatted his nose. Ridiculous creature.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#60

Post by alistairSH »

djrogers wrote: post #34
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.

Cats are incredibly efficient hunters. I’d venture that 1-2 per household would quickly make a huge difference in the population, although a good number of those would have to be outdoor / barn / feral cats to have along term effect. Disneyland has roughly 400 cats that keep the park largely rodent free, which is a minor miracle given the amount of food there is there.

Plus, you'd see a noticeable decline in local birds, which might not be desirable.
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