While the world battles Covid-19, farmers in Australia face an additional ailment. According to ABC News, the mouse plague began 10 months ago, and it’s been brutal. The rodents eat new crops, destroy farm machinery, and even bite people in their beds. Many farmers lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to damage, and their crops are unable to recover from the recent drought. The plague also harms food-related businesses, impacting people’s stress and sleep levels. Everyone is desperate for the plague to end, but the cost of bait to kill the mice rises.
Therefore, one farmer, Andrew Jones, got creative with disposing of mice; he dropped them into a burning barrel. His video of the process sparked controversy on TikTok, as people called for a more humane method of killing the mice. However, the video appears to have now been removed.
Burning Mice Alive
In the popular video, live mice drop from a grain conveyor into the fire. Some manage to escape, but most are trapped and burned inside the barrel. The video has over six million views. But not everyone agrees with this outlandish method. As one person commented on Yahoo News Australia, “I think there are several methods of removal. Doing this is a demonstration of animal cruelty.”
“I feel like there is a better way to do this,” another person wrote. Similarly, another added, “Definitely could have been done more humanely.”
However, Jones countered these comments by asking if there was a better way to deal with the mouse plague. “So baiting them is humane?” he wrote. “They die slowly over time? Drowning them is humane? Give me a humane way to kill them, and I’ll do it.” For context, most farmers use bait, as in industrial chemicals mixed in grains, to kill the mice on their farms.
Additionally, some people stood behind Jones, even those who believed the method was brutal. As one person said, “Seems cruel, but the huge mice population is absolutely warfare. They’re destroying all the…crops and houses. Anything to stop them.”
Animal rights group PETA states that a “catch and release” method is the most humane way to deal with rodents. However, they eventually conceded that killing the mice might be needed to stop this damaging plague. Plus, as reported by Indy100, there’s a concern with using poison to kill the mice because it can, unfortunately, kill farmer’s dogs, as well as native birds.
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More About The Mouse Plague
Australia experienced the perfect weather conditions for breeding mice from the end of 2017 to the drought in 2019. The mice first came in the spring of 2020. Many of their predators had died in the drought, and storage houses and paddocks were full of grain for them to eat. The summer that followed was mild and damp, which helped the mice breed into the fall.
“(We had) really bad years of drought, then a beautiful year in 2020, and this year is shaping up really well, too. But there’s always something,” said Canowindra farmer Michael Payten. “This year, it’s mice. We had a really good year last year, a lot of grain. We put a lot of hay in sheds and created these massive mouse hotels.”
Source: The Independent
Experts estimate their numbers to be in the millions, but it’s impossible to determine for certain. Many Australians place the legs of their beds in buckets of water to spare them from mice while they sleep. The rodents are also appearing in schools, hospitals, and supermarkets, where all food must be kept in sealed containers.
@andyj3825 ♬ original sound – Andrew
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Poisoning the Mice
Unfortunately, there’s no real end in sight. Typically, mouse plagues die out due to starvation or disease. This means baiting could control mouse populations but not stop them entirely. For now, many farmers use zinc phosphide to poison the mice. Additionally, the NSW Government has registered the chemical bromadiolone for agricultural use to the independent Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. However, many are concerned with how the poison will affect the crops and kill the wildlife.
“You could completely reduce the population of birds of prey,” said Charles Sturt University ecologist Maggie Watson. Many of these birds could die after eating a poisoned rodent. “It could take 15 to 20 years for them to start coming back, and meanwhile we don’t have any natural controls for the next mouse plague that comes along.”
Source: CNN
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Sources:
- “Why is there a mouse plague in Australia and can it be stopped?” ABC News. Lucy Thackray. June 11, 2021
- “Farmer’s drastic TikTok video tackling mouse plague.” Yahoo News. Josh Dutton. June 6, 2021
- “Farmer facing mouse plague sparks huge TikTok debate after burning rodents alive.” Indy100. Greg Evans. June 8, 2021
- “Australia ‘mouse plague’ sees rodents crawling into beds and biting occupants.” The Independent. Joe Middleton. May 26, 2021
- “Millions of mice are swarming Australian towns. Now there’s a plan to end the plague with poison.” CNN. Angus Watson and Paul Devitt. May 21, 2021