SYDNEY, Australia – An uncontrollable plague of mice, considered one of the worst in recent decades in Australia, has been devastating crops for weeks and has pushed the country’s farmers to the limit, who still have not raised their heads after suffering in form consecutive devastating fires, droughts and floods.
These mice appear everywhere: in cupboards, on the ceilings and walls of houses; They also run around the beds where the farmers sleep, who spend hours setting traps or cleaning the corpses of these animals, according to various videos and photographs published on social networks.
But in addition, these farmers and ranchers in rural New South Wales and the southern part of the neighboring state of Queensland, have to cope with the contamination of their animals’ food and the increase in infections of leptospirosis, an infectious disease that is transmitted with water contaminated by the urine of infected animals.
“It is an economic and health crisis. From the contamination of food and water by mice, to the diseases they spread, this pest is affecting more than crops, not to mention the stress it causes,” the executive director said this week. of the Association of Rural Women of the region, Danica Leys.
RODENTS APPEAR EVERYWHERE
To combat the plague, farmers, still not recovering from the worst drought, worst fire and worst flooding in decades in eastern Australia, must invest nearly $9,000 in rodenticides to cover a 2,000-acre area before beginning to sow.
“In many areas, farmers are already in their third or fourth round of poison and costs are increasing with no solution in sight,” NSW Farmers Grain committee chair Mattew Madden recently noted.
The man, enjoying a family vacation in Australia and accompanied by his 2-year-old daughter, approached the octopus to record it.
The rodent infestation, which occurs in the middle of the southern autumn and for which there is no data on the costs to the economy, has already forced 40% of farmers in New South Wales to reduce the area of their crops, according to a recent industry survey.
And it is that mice can cause damage during all the growth phases of crops such as cereals, as well as canola, lentils and other legumes.
They also affect grain and forage reserves to feed livestock, while the presence of rodent faeces in products for human consumption causes the rejection of buyers.
Australia’s heavy flooding has brought swarms of spiders into a resident’s backyard, and the creatures congregate on his fence in large numbers.
To mitigate the crisis, the New South Wales government announced on Thursday a package of more than $ 30 million through which the victims will be provided free of charge with poison and grain treatment.
The state government has also sought urgent approval from the regulatory body for the use of the powerful rodenticide bromadiolone, a chemical that for its Minister of Agriculture, Adam Marshall, is like putting “napalm to mice”, according to statements collected by the local network ABC.
The house mouse, which can give birth to a litter of six to ten pups every 19 to 21 days, “is very well adapted to Australian conditions, and can survive long dry spells and thrive when there is plenty of food and moisture,” according to the expert of the governmental scientific agency CSIRO, Steve Henry in The Conversation magazine.
“When the climatic conditions are favorable for the production of crops, they are also favorable for the breeding of mice. And the mice reproduce with alarming speed,” he added.