Locust Outbreak In Australia Worst In Decades - Mice Also Swarming

[hatrack]

NARRABRI Australia - "Australia has started battling its biggest plague of locusts in decades as billions of the insects hatch along a wide front covering much of the country's central east region.
Ground spraying will be stepped up from next week as dusty, scrubby fields crawl with the quarter-inch hopping baby insects, New South Wales Plague Locust Commissioner Graeme Eggleston told Reuters.

A field inspection last week showed countless numbers of the week-old insects hopping knee high in fields on the outskirts of Narrabri, a cotton-growing region, 250 miles northwest of Sydney.

EDIT

Department of Primary Industries information released during Friday's site inspection showed reported locust hatchings as of Sept. 16 were concentrated on the Coonabarabran-Narrabri district in central New South Wales. But hatchings also extended on a 600 mile front throughout New South Wales. "They're coming in daily," New South Wales Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said, with 172 hatchings reported so far. "When it's bad they can just blot out the sun," he said.

EDIT

Farmers said there was growing concern over a simultaneous plague of mice. Both outbreaks have been sparked by the breaking earlier this year of Australia's worst drought in a century. Rural Land Protection Board officials said 2,200 acres of mouse bait was laid around Narrabri on Thursday."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27208/story.htm

[Jack_Dawson]

1. I miss Australia

Can I buy "VB" anywhere in the states?

[phantom power]

2. I'm expecting the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man at any moment

[soothsayer]

3. We had a rat population explosion in fashionable Arlington VA

cuz the LOVED the cicadas...!