A farmer has captured night vision footage of hundreds of mice scurrying through his paddock, offering a stark illustration of the escalating mouse plague affecting parts of Australia.
Mouse Numbers Surge Across South Australia and Western Australia
Australian farmers, already grappling with limited fertiliser supplies, are now contending with a mouse plague in large areas of South Australia and Western Australia. Matt Davey, who farms on the northern end of the Yorke Peninsula, told the ABC that the mouse population has boomed to levels not seen since 2021.
“Probably within the last month and a half, we’ve started seeing the odd one around the sheds,” Davey said. “There’s more moisture around, which has probably allowed them to breed up, because the last few years have been so dry.”
CSIRO Reports Rising Mouse Numbers
Steve Henry, a research officer at CSIRO, said that sites which previously recorded 100 to 200 mice per hectare are now seeing up to 600 mice per hectare. Mice can produce six to ten babies every 19 to 21 days, meaning populations can spiral out of control rapidly. A plague is officially declared at 800 mice per hectare, but Henry warned farmers to start preparing for crop damage.
“You get ‘UFO rings’ where around their holes there’s just nothing because they’ve eaten the grain, so that can thin the crop pretty well,” he said. “In plague levels, I’ve seen huge areas wiped out.”
Expert Warns of Devastating Impact on Crops
Robert Davis, an Associate Professor in Wildlife Conservation at Edith Cowan University, detailed the potential devastation in an article for The Conversation. “Many farmers are about to start seeding – the process of putting seeds into the soil to grow crops – after recent rains. These farmers are now at risk of losing their crops before they even have the chance to germinate,” he wrote.
Davis noted that the current plague could be as severe as those in 2020 and 2021, which affected communities across South Australia, western Victoria, New South Wales, and southern Queensland. Over an 11-month period, millions of mice devoured spring crops and destroyed farm machinery, costing the agricultural sector an estimated $1 billion. The economic uncertainty also took an immense psychological toll on farmers and local businesses.
“This plague event also exposed rural communities to rodent-related disease, leaving some residents highly anxious or fearful,” Davis added.
Farmers Take Action with Baits
Farmers in Western Australia and South Australia have already begun deploying baits to help curb the mouse population. Several agriculture supply businesses have reported ordering more bait in anticipation of a surge in sales.
“Anyone who’s lived through a mouse plague knows how destructive, both economically and emotionally, they can be,” Davis wrote. “So let’s hope this latest plague event comes to a swift end. That way rural communities across WA and SA can get back on their feet.”
