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24-11-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
QUEENSLAND/ SYDNEY: Thousands of rats dead and alive have swept up on beaches in Queensland Australia, overwhelming residents.
The state has been battling a rat and mouse plague for months now.
A surge in the native rodent population has forced the rats to move coastwards in their search for more food, but many do not survive the trip, according to experts quoted in local media.
“Mate, there’s rats everywhere,” Derek Lord, a resident from the town of Normanton, told media.
“We have hire vehicles and they literally destroyed a car overnight, taking all of the wiring out of the engine bay,” said Lord, 49.
He added that his pet ducks had been “going mad” as rats broke into their cages.
The rats have also infested the neighboring town of Karumba in the past few weeks and some residents worry they will have an adverse effect on tourism in the area, Australian media reported. Karumba is well-known as a fishing and birdwatching paradise.
One video posted on social media shows heaps of dead rats piled up by the water, while flies and other insects swarm around them. Another clip shows a large number of them floating in the river.
The surge in the rat population has been caused by a combination of ideal wet weather conditions for breeding and a bountiful harvest.
With more wet weather expected for Queensland, some people believe the worst is as yet to come.
Parts of Queensland and New South Wales, a south-eastern Australian state – have been experiencing a boom in rodent numbers, Australia’s national science agency said in a 2021 article.
Mouse populations have reached plague conditions not seen since 2011, it said.
“We’ve heard there are still more that are coming,” Jemma Probert, a fishing charter owner in Karumba, told media.
“It’s not a good thing to leave Karumba remembering,” she said.
According to the Australia’s national science agency, “our researcher and mouse expert Steve Henry is no stranger to working with animals but his work is more relevant to Australians now than ever before. Steve’s at the forefront of finding a solution to the mouse plague”.
Parts of Queensland and New South Wales are experiencing a boom in mice numbers. Mouse populations have reached plague conditions not seen since 2011. This is largely due to favourable climatic conditions, which have created optimal conditions for mice to breed.
Steve has led an evidence-based research project to help address this issue. Funded by Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), this research has led to doubling the recommended dose of zinc phosphide (ZnP) in mouse baits.
Steve said a mouse plague of this kind happens about every 10 years.
“Mice are currently responding to seasonal conditions. There’s been good rainfall after several years of drought and the bumper grain crops grown over spring and summer provide excess food for mice,” Steve said. (Int’l News Desk)
