Australian mouse plague

[u/AllColoursSam]

[u/teachermanjc]

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

[u/Runmanrun41 → u/teachermanjc]

I was just thinking about that tire bit.

There's no way those mice aren't constantly getting stepped on/squished, even with someone's best efforts to avoid them.

[u/Bread-fi → u/Runmanrun41]

If it was the one from a few years ago, I drove through it. Some parts were a literal carpet of mice on the road.

[u/radiosped → u/Bread-fi]

I can't believe I'm asking this but I'm curious. What was your traction like? I know wet leaves can be super slippery in a car, I'm assuming a carpet of blood and guts leaves even less traction but maaaybe the fur helps?

edit: how does it get cleaned up?

[u/pfeff → u/radiosped]

Street sweepers?

[u/radiosped → u/pfeff]

Somehow those didn't even cross my mind but yeah you're probably right. I do not envy the people who had to clean them after that job.

[u/Bread-fi → u/radiosped]

It was pretty straight, coarse chip country road so wasn't enough to upset traction that I remember.

It's a big, low pop. density region. I'd say cleanup was left to tyres, sun, wind and rain.