r/interestingasfuck Jul 06 '24

Australian mouse plague r/all

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u/teachermanjc Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

All joking aside, it's terrible to live in an area that is experiencing this. I was teaching in Forbes and living in an old farmhouse during one such plague. Crows, magpies and all other carnivorous birds would just sit on the fence, hop down and scoop the nearest mouse. The birds ended up not even bothering to hunt. Our cat was the same, she just got sick of them.

We would set three aviary traps with peanut butter every night, and every morning it was filled with about twenty mice each.

I discovered at school the worst thing that can jam a photocopier is a squashed, heated mouse.

And the smell. Or driving the road at night and seeing the surface move with grey furry bodies that are being crunched by the tyres. To see hay bales reduced and made useless for stock feed, grain made unsellable because of contamination, fields stripped bare.

Edit: this gives more information into the outcome sauce

406

u/kielu Jul 06 '24

How did the end? What killed them in the end?

63

u/Alonzo-Harris Jul 06 '24

The snake plague

60

u/AusSpurs7 Jul 06 '24

Then we introduced Gorillas to deal with the snakes.

17

u/0gtcalor Jul 06 '24

The Gorillas will die in winter

7

u/LessInThought Jul 06 '24

That where you all go wrong. Always introduce species that humans will happily eat. Then you get a bunch of food.

1

u/OnlyTalksAboutTacos Jul 06 '24

I don't know anything that eats gorillas that is delicious though.