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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

#81

Post by thaumasiotes »

path411 wrote: post #78
thaumasiotes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in a major us city and there has to be 30+ feral cats within my block it's crazy.

That would be a pitifully small number compared to a park in Athens.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#82

Post by CJ808 »

saul_goodman wrote: post #72
Nerada wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was an incredibly interesting watch, I had no idea this was a thing. Is there something special about where they're digging for it to be plagued with such a large amount of rats? It looks like it would take weeks to cover all of their land with this digging + dog method.

It looks maby like the remains of a row of haylage. Basically chopped corn, stalk and all, which is used to feed livestock. Usually you see this stuff in long white bags in the US country side, but there are multiple ways to store it. The stuff smells ferocious and self ferments. So they've probably used up the previous years haylage pile and now they are cleaning house so the rats don't totally mow down the spring p…

I think 30 secs in shows a building on skids. It’s probably something like a chicken house that has been moved across the field. The rats are in amongst the old poop.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#83

Post by laurent92 »

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?

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 resisting 5%. And same from France.

It’s the disease that makes rabbit have red eyes (very easy to spot from far away). But beware, I’m storytelling from memory, huge details must be wrong.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#85

Post by chris1993 »

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...

No, they're trying to eliminate feral cats in the bush and outback areas where they are driving native animal populations to extinction. The mouse problem is in grain farming areas and is cyclical.

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#88

Post by offby37years »

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.

When you only have a hammer...

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#89

Post by wruza »

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.

Obligatory Andrew Ucles tutorial on cats:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cTV6mKV6oE

Re: Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

#90

Post by dwaite »

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.

* Except a few giant rodents they largely stay away from
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