Australian farmers and factories are facing a severe attack by millions of mice, as farmers struggle to protect their crops from the worst rodent plagues in decades.
A video posted on Tuesday night appears to show some of the mice 'raining' from the sky. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist Lucy Thackray shared the video, which shows both dead and live mice falling to the ground in the Australian state of New South Wales. "Even if grain's in silos, mice can get to it. Like Tyler Jones discovered in Tullamore when cleaning out the auger and it started raining mice," Thackray wrote on Twitter.
In the western districts of New South Wales (NSW), the country's most populous state, millions of mice are now on the march. There are also serious infestations in southern Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.
In recent months, millions of mice have been causing massive destruction to crops and stored cereals in eastern Australia. Not only that, in three towns, the mice even managed to invade the local hospital, biting patients.
A viral video showed a giant vacuum sucking up the mice from storage containers, but methods to treat the intrusion have so far offered little respite for farmers.
The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) Thursday announced a relief package for farmers dealing with a catastrophic mouse plague that has destroyed crops and caused havoc in communities.
State Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall told the media that USD 39 million in funding will go to farmers dealing with the emergency, reports DPA news agency.
"We are going to provide free chemical poison baits for farmers, primary producers, croppers, to challenge this scourge," Marshall said, adding that rebates will also be given to small businesses and households for poison and traps purchased.
The Minister said that the state's government was also seeking approval from the country's pesticides authority to use bromadiolone, a new poison currently outlawed in Australia, which he said is "the strongest mouse poison you can get on the face of the earth".
"We haven't seen a plague on this scale really since the early 80s, and everyone was hoping that the cool conditions in winter would actually see their numbers dented. Nothing so far has worked," Marshall said.
The plague of rodents has been running wild for months, with people bitten and crops decimated. Tonnes of grain cannot be sold because it's been contaminated by mice droppings and truckloads of hay will be burnt because of the damage.
As of late April, NSW Health had been notified of 23 cases of leptospirosis, a rare disease that can cause kidney failure and meningitis which is commonly passed on by mice, since the beginning of the year, compared to 11 in 2020, Australian news wire AAP reported.
(With inputs from agencies)
