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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

#61

Post by war1025 »

quesera wrote: post #56
QuarterReptile wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a coworker that recently moved from near Boston to southern Massachusetts. Absolutely boggles my mind the amount of wildlife he comes across. I thought the East coast was basically fully urbanized.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#62

Post by qiqing »

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

Maybe that's the root cause of the problem.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#63

Post by JoshTko »

This is one of the result of climate crisis. As complex environments get disrupted over time they become less and less diverse allowing for more booms and busts of single species. The wildfires last year probably wiped out a lot of the mice predators.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#64

Post by Zhenya »

JoshTko wrote: post #63

This is one of the result of climate crisis. As complex environments get disrupted over time they become less and less diverse allowing for more booms and busts of single species. The wildfires last year probably wiped out a lot of the mice predators.

Maybe!

But also mice are not native to australia and here is a list of plagues of mice in australia since the 1800s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_plagues_in_Australia

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#65

Post by nyolfen »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #57
nyolfen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ti…

anatomically modern humans are thought to date to about 200kya, but early humans like h. erectus go back much further

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#66

Post by secondcoming »

inglor_cz wrote: post #7
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 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.

Do deaf dogs not like squeaky toys?

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#67

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#68

Post by mncharity »

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

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.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#69

Post by zizee »

subungual wrote: post #32
underseacables wrote: post #29

This is going to sound silly but I’m absolutely serious: where are the cats?

It sounds like the numbers they're dealing with may be well beyond what could be controlled by cats. Additionally, they may be wary, as Australia is already a case study in what can happen as a result of introducing one species to control another's population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

There are probably millions of feral cats roaming australia.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#70

Post by marshmallow_12 »

eknkc wrote: post #42
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.

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.

In Israel too. Although they prefer going after rubbish. They say the British Mandate brought them in to deal with the rodent problem.
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