Mice in Plague Proportions !

 We have a mouse plague eating its way through cereal crops in inland Australia.  The television news illustrates millions of mice rampaging through farm sheds and reducing sileage  to powder.  They are even travelling on freight trains and it is feared they will successfully transfer to the nation's cities.

Ideal weather conditions have spawned this plague and the numbers show no sign of letting up. It is feared they may destroy this years winter crops and already they have created havoc with their destruction of stored food supplies in country grocers.

Farmers are desperate to end this problem and have called on the Agriculture Minister to release 10,000 litres of bromadiolone from the stock held by the Australian Pesticide and Vetinerary Medicines Authority., and that has some leading scientists worried.

Bromadiolone is a second  generation coagulant and needs only one feeding before the animal dies from uncontrolled bleeding.  However, this poison can be accumulated in the food chain, killing animals such as Lizards and Kookaburras which would eat dead mice.

The CSIRO suggests that zinc  phosphide would be a better option because its potency has recently been doubled and it has few secondary poisoning risks because it does not accumulate.  Zinc Phosphide is not  subjected to a blanket ban, but must not be used within eighty metres of native vegetation.

These mice numbers are so great that conventional means of mice control would be useless.  Control methods have exhausted Liverpool Plains croppers and graziers and left unchecked they could wipe a billion dollars off this years winter crops.

Where bromadiolone has been used in the past it has been permitted only on the perimeter of paddocks, leaving the mouse hordes ensconced unaffected.  The use of this virus is like a " toxic time bomb " that will kill any manner of predator that dines on the victims.

So far, the mice affected areas have not had a visit from premier Gladys Berejiklian or Deputy Premier John Barilaro.  This horde is progressing towards the coast and has now reached the Hawksbury Valley.

There seems to be just these two options to bring it under control and it is imperative that a decision be made and implemented.    The number of mice ravaging the country is growing to biblical proportions when some scientists predict a coming world famine.

A decision is urgent !