Rodent army ‘marching on Sydney’ as farmers fight to stop mice invading their land and even their beds
Hitchcock-esque plague spreads 1,000km across Australia, causing untold damage to the country s eastern coast
25 May 2021 • 6:10pm
Farmers in Australia are being urged to help drive away a growing plague of mice by using an app to track infestations that now stretch more than 1,000km.
They have been found inside homes, in children s classrooms and even in hospitals as they continue to spread in favourable conditions following heavy rains after severe hot and dry spells.
“People are putting the legs of their beds in buckets or pots of water, but the mice are still climbing curtains, jumping onto their beds and biting them, Xavier Martin, a grain farmer from the Liverpool Plains of New South Wales, told The Telegraph.
The extent of Australia s revolting mouse plague has been revealed in an alarming new map by the CSIRO.
Stretching for over 1000km from southeast Queensland to the New South Wales-Victoria border, the online platform called Mouse Alert, shows a swath of red circles indicating a high number of rodents.
The east coast of Australia has been inundated by the unwanted visitors this Autumn with cooler weather and high crop yields creating perfect conditions for the pests to thrive.
According to the the national science body, the worst hit areas have been the Northern Tablelands, Central West and New England regions of NSW, but there has been speculation the plague could reach even Sydney in coming months.
Mouse plague plotted from Queensland to NSW-Victoria border
An enormous red and orange blob stretching more than 1000 kilometres from Toowoomba in Queensland to Albury on the New South Wales-Victoria border shows in brutal colour how bad the 2021 mouse plague is.
The worst-hit areas, according to CSIRO s mouse tracker map, powered by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions, are the Northern Tablelands, Central West and New England regions of NSW.
Red dots, representing the highest levels of infestation, rise in intensity across the Central West, where NSW farmers and residents have been overwhelmed for months.
MORE:
WATCH:
Mostly orange dots, reflecting medium mouse activity, begin to appear around Wagga Wagga and parts of the Riverina in NSW, as plague numbers dissipate.
Date Time
FeralScan celebrates 10 years of pest monitoring
Launched on Australia Day, 2011, FeralScan™ marks its 10th year milestone with a major makeover and enhancements to its dashboard interface – check it out at www.feralscan.org.au.
FeralScan™ is a free resource that woolgrowers – plus other landholders, community groups and professional pest animal controllers – can use to record information about pest animal activity in their local area.
FeralScan™ is a free community pest management resource from the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. It includes sections devoted to the key pest animals that affect the businesses of woolgrowers: wild dogs, foxes, rabbits, feral pigs and deer.