Australian city hit by worst mice plague ‘in a long time’; rodents chew individuals, invade properties

Mice infested rural areas in New South Wales, Australia as the rodents invaded homes, swarmed on beaches, entered farm barns, and scuttled by the hundreds of thousands in shops, pipes and machines. In the spines that surfaced online, the panic-driven rodents on farms in Gilgandra, northwest of Sydney, messed around, destroyed crops and entered hospitals where patients and electrical wires were bitten. Several thousand mice stripped the shelves in convenience stores clean and damaged food as they nibbled through the chaos and rampage in the densely populated state.

In a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC), a farmer named Ron Mckay said that thousands and thousands of mice covered the ground at night and moved quickly. Local reports identified at least 3 mouse injuries in patients at health centers in Tottenham, Walgett and Gulargambone. Mice were found in water tanks locked in sealed food containers, pantries and cupboards of houses, littering previously clean rooms with feces and smelly smells as the worst mouse plague in decades spread across NSW.

A Wagga Wagga farmer and a member of the NSW Farmers Association told The Guardian that he suffered a loss of $ 300,000 (£ 168,000) to mice when the rodents destroyed the crops. The only way out is hoping heavy downpours will drown the rodents in their bills, locals told reporters. The swarm of mice destroyed several acres of hay bales, and without sparing the grocer’s communities, the rodents invaded shops in Coonamble, northwest of Sydney.

Hey @GladysB and @ScottMorrisonMP, can you please tell us what you are doing about the current mouse plague in NSW? This is a small fraction of what my mother caught overnight on her farm. These run through people’s homes and over their beds. Something has to be done. NOW! pic.twitter.com/mDYQOHoivs

– Katrina (@ Katrina_351) March 16, 2021

On-farm programs to control rodents “ineffective”

A local grocer in Gulargambone told Sky News that employees caught nearly 500 mice, or sometimes 600 mice, at night. “It’s pretty gross,” he said. He added that the shops stink and many mice are dying in the supermarkets that locals rely on for food. People are “freaking out” and going shopping elsewhere, he said. The New South Wales Government Department of Primary Industries noted that the farm rodent control programs that rely only on rodicides to control and treat rodent problems are not effective or sustainable.