Last-ditch bid to repel ravenous rodents
10/7/2007 9:41
An estimated two billion field mice are chomping their way hungrily
through crops in 22 counties around the Dongting Lake in central China's Hunan
Province.
Floods have forced the mice from their homes on islands in the
lake.
Authorities in Yiyang, Yuanjiang, Junshan and Huarong are rushing
to build walls and dig ditches to keep the mice away from flood-control dikes
and cropland.
The mice burrow through the dikes and spread out into
cropland, eating crops and posing a threat to human health.
They could
contribute to flooding because it is the rainy season in the area, said experts
with the Hunan provincial office of plant protection and quarantine.
In
Yiyang, to the north of Dongting Lake, a long wall and a 30-60 centimeter-deep
ditch have been built on the lakeside to resist the mice invasion.
The
ditch was alive with mice yesterday, and a thick, dark wedge of mice jostled and
heaved at the foot of the wall.
Local residents used clubs and shovels to
kill the mice by the score.
Some lowered fishing nets to catch the mice
alive, catching several kilograms of mice at each attempt.
More than 2.25
million mice - about 90 tons - have been killed since June 21, authorities
said.
The massive invasion of field mice began on June 23 when the
Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in Dongting Lake and submerging
mouse holes on islands in the lake, said Hunan plant protection
experts.
In Yuanjiang, Junshan and Huarong, where local people were
slower to build walls and ditches, mice have already damaged flood-control dikes
and ruined crops.
More floods are forecast.
Xinhua
|
