There should be a collective sigh of relief going up from grey nomads – and from all who live or travel in the Red Centre – now that the feral mouse plague there is beginning to abate.
It’s still not quite safe to come down for the chair though, and it will pay to keep your foodstuffs well sealed and well protected from the marauding hordes of rodents for a while yet.
Hopes are high though that the worst is behind us.
Chief district ranger Chris Day told the Northern Territory News that there have not been many horror stories lately but warned that mouse numbers could still spike again with warmer weather.
He said at the height of the plague residents had caught hundreds of mice each night in ‘bucket traps’.
“That’s a good indication of the severity,” he said. “It’s still fairly bad south of Alice but it dropped pretty rapidly with the frosty weather.”
The falling mice numbers will certainly be good news for the region’s tourist industry which has apparently been hit hard by the invasion.
The Northern Territory News says that while locals used their nous to deal with the furry problem, nomads skirted rural centres like the plague.
Chris Day, who is based at Simpson Gap, has declared that it is safe again.
“If I had taken my swag out bush a couple of months ago I would have been covered in mice,” he said. “I went camping a couple of nights ago and it was fine.”
Pheww!
Of course, the Red Centre is not the only area to have been affected by a mice plague this year. New South Wales’ Riverina district has also been in the firing line. One of the standard responses is, of course, to bait – but there is growing concern about the effect that mouse and rat poison can have on the food chain.
The Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) says rats and mice baited with readily available baits may be taken by a raptor such as the endangered barking owl, boobook or wedge-tailed eagle. All carnivorous native animals and birds are affected by these chemicals including kookaburras and magpies, quolls, goannas and antechinus. Domestic pets can also ingest and die from rat-baited food.
According the website www.feral.org.au, the mus domesticus probably came to Australia with the First Fleet. Normally population levels are relatively low, however, when conditions are favourable mice numbers can increase exponentially to plague proportions and they become a serious pest. A plague is officially declared with more than 1000 mice per hectare. Every mouse that is not snatched up by a predator has an average of 60 babies. Mice breed in the southern hemisphere from August to May. One breeding pair of mice and their offspring has the potential to produce 500 mice in just 21 weeks.
Eeeek!
