Australia is battling the worst rodent “plague” in decades as the swarming pests overrun rural towns
Farmers have told of the ground appearing to ‘move’ with swarms of the critters and filmed hordes of thousands of mice running around just metres from their hoe.
One piece of stomach-churning footage shows endless streams of dead and alive mice ‘raining down’ to earth as a farmer empties out a piece of machinery.
The clip was captured by an ABC reporter investigating the growing crisis who filmed the worker emptying a silo on a farm in Tullamore, in New South Wales, about 208 miles north west of Sydney.
ABC reporter Lucy Thackray said it started “raining mice” as a farmer cleaned out his auger, a piece of equipment used to store grain.
(Image: @LucyThack/ABC/Twitter)
In the 45-second clip, a piece of machinery spits out thousands of the critters onto the dusty ground.
“Even if grain’s in silos, mice can get to it,” she tweeted.
“Like Tyler Jones discovered in Tullamore when cleaning out the auger and it started raining mice.”
Farmer Ron Mckay told the ABC: “At night… the ground is just moving with thousands and thousands of mice just running around.”
Maree Pobje from rural Tottenham, NSW, a wheat-growing region, shared footage of a huge swarm of mice pouring out of a storehouse 50-metres from her home.
She told the national broadcaster “It is disgusting the government isn’t helping with costs as we live in the middle of a plague riddling every surface in our house, clothes and food.”
In another video from the front lines of the state’s “mouse plague”, the reporter posted a clip of a black cat apparently so used to the hordes of rodents it doesn’t even bother to nab a little critter sitting on its head.
According to the reports, NSW farmers are at their wits’ end as they demand help from the state’s government to end the pest crisis and support farms dealing with destroyed crops and grains.
They have said the problem has escalated into an “economic and public health crisis”.
(Image: @LucyThack/ABC/Twitter)
The head of NSW Farmers’ grains committee told media entire summer crops had already been lost to the mouse plague as the pests devoured crops and grain stores and chewed through machinery wires.
A survey of farmers in the state revealed some were holding back planting this season because of the problem.
The NSW farmers survey showed one-third said they were spending as much as $20,000 to $150,000 (£7,100 to £82,000 )on baiting for the beasts.
Rebecca Hind, a resident of Canowindra told the ABC said she had lost sleep over the mouse infestation, and shops were running out of baits and traps as the worsening problem boosted demand.
(Image: @LucyThack/ABC/Twitter)
She called the situation “mentally draining”.
“As long as politicians don’t have mouse droppings on their floors, it isn’t happening,” she said.
The state’s Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall told the broadcaster the state government had been providing assistance for farmers and had requested permission to allow them to use a double-strength mouse bait.
He rubbished farmers’ claims the government was failing to meet requests for financial aid and said requests for a rebate were being considered.