NSW Farmers Vice President Xavier Martin says there are serious concerns around the secondary toxicity of the poison which the New South Wales government is proposing to use to tackle the state's mouse plague.
Mr Martin also told Sky News the chemical bromadiolone - which is yet to be approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority - is slow to take effect.
“At the moment farmers are racing to try and get 6 million hectares of winter crop in the ground and we’re spreading 70 tonnes of zinc phosphide a day,” he said.
“That product kills a mouse within about an hour or less . it turns into a gas in their gut within a day.
“The problem with the minister’s product is it takes seven days to kill - in which case they can easily wipe out an emerging canola crop in a couple of nights - but worse than that the toxicity in the carcass remains for 100 to 200 days.
“So therein lies the product for … farm dogs, pigs, poultry, let alone the raptors
‘People are not coping’: Farmers fear $1 billion mouse plague bill
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NSW Farmers fear the mouse plague devastating regional communities may wipe $1 billion off the value of winter crops, warning the crisis could span two years.
The association’s vice president Xavier Martin blamed the NSW government for the escalating crisis.
Coonamble broadacre farmer Allan Inglis cleaning out his mouse traps.
Credit:Dean Sewell
“We have a plague because the government did nothing, they said it was just a problem,” he said.
“It’s turned into something that knocks the heck out of our state economy when we’re trying to recover from COVID.
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app instead?
The plague of mice attacking parts of Australia is turning into a horror story.
By Sybilla Gross, Bloomberg
24 May 2021 08:04
Image: Bloomberg
The plague of mice attacking parts of Australia is turning into a horror story, with the rodents threatening to invade Sydney, reports of the vermin eating their own, and the farming industry being thrown into turmoil.
Millions of mice have swarmed schools, homes and hospitals in the eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland, wreaking havoc and leaving entire towns suffocating from a lingering pungent odor. Now there are reports of them munching on the remains of dead rodents and even predictions that they could reach Sydney in a matter of weeks, riding on freight trucks and food crates.
They ve been here six months, but it s only in the last couple of weeks they ve got really thick like this, he said. I don t have a lot of experience with mice, I don t think anybody our age does. This is the first mice plague we ve had. Making matters worse, Laurie said, was the lack of available bait. He said he had contacted two local suppliers looking for zinc sulphur bait, but neither had any available nor could say when they would. It s a concern, Laurie said. The New South Wales state government has lodged an emergency request with the federal Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to approve the use of bromadiolone, which cannot currently be legally used in fields.