Days after photos and videos of a plague of hungry mice hitting parts of rural Australia went viral, the state of New South Wales seems to have turned to India and ordered heavy doses of the banned rat poison Bromadiolone. According to reports, Australian authorities have ordered 5,000 litres of the poison, sometimes called the ‘Napalm’ for mice, following one of the first plague outbreaks in decades to hit the farms in the New South Wales region.
New South Wales’ agriculture minister Adam Marshall was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying that Bromadiolone was “actually the strongest mouse poison we can get anywhere on the face of the earth that actually will kill these things within 24 hours".
The controversial order is yet to receive approval from the federal Australian government amid concerns that the poison might end up killing other animals and lifeforms.
Vast tracts of land in Australia’s New South Wales are being threatened by a mouse plague that the state government describes as “absolutely unprecedented." Just how many millions of rodents have infested the agricultural plains across the state is guesswork. This week, photos and videos of thousands of mice scurrying across barns and damaging farms and other properties went viral online.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Farmers are struggling as the biggest plague of mice in decades continues to sweep across Australia’s New South Wales https://t.co/LTDpEKnIoy pic.twitter.com/PFf2eqaLTP— Reuters (@Reuters) May 26, 2021
Meanwhile at Chuck E. Cheese…https://t.co/r0ZWlGubyy— 999TheBuzz (@999thebuzz) May 26, 2021
“We’re at a critical point now where if we don’t significantly reduce the number of mice that are in plague proportions by spring, we are facing an absolute economic and social crisis in rural and regional New South Wales,” Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said this month.
Bruce Barnes said he is taking a gamble by planting crops on his family farm near the central New South Wales town of Bogan Gate.
“We just sow and hope,” he said.
The risk is that the mice will maintain their numbers through the Southern Hemisphere winter and devour the wheat, barley and canola before it can be harvested.
NSW Farmers, the state’s top agricultural association, predicts the plague will wipe more than AU$1 billion ($775 million) from the value of the winter crop.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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