Worst mouse plague in decade hits parts of Australia

They are everywhere is what some Australians have been describing the situation in eastern Australia after being hit by their worst mouse plague in almost a decade.

Farmers and communities across large swathes of inland eastern Australia have witnessed a disturbing situation after mouse populations spiked over the past 12 months owing to improved crop-growing conditions in rural parts, providing the rodents with favourable conditions for eating and breeding.

Elevated mouse populations have been recorded from Central Queensland down to northern and central west NSW and into western Victoria. In some areas, problems with mice have reached plague-level proportions.

The last big mouse outbreak in Australia occurred around 2011.

“The mice have continued to breed through the spring, into the summer and now the real concern is that they’ll continue to breed into the autumn and cause a lot of trouble for the sowing of winter crops (in March/April),” CSIRO mouse researcher Steve Henry told AAP.

“Everywhere you turn there’s a mouse … it’s just impossible to get on top of them.”

Such an outcome, according to Coonamble Chamber of Commerce president and newspaper proprietor Lee O’Connor, would be disastrous for rural communities only just emerging from years of drought.

The central west NSW town – situated in the state’s “wheat belt” and famous for Australia’s biggest rodeo and campdraft – has since November battled booming mouse numbers in both farm paddocks and homes.

In some places, the boom has caused a shortage of rodent baits and traps.

The Centre for Invasive Species Solutions’ “FeralScan” online reporting tool lists seven major mouse sightings in the past 12 months around Coonamble, with rodent populations “widespread and obvious in paddocks”.

“One supermarket said they were catching 200 a night, there have been people catching a couple hundred in their pool filters every night,” Ms O’Connor said. “They’re in beds, people getting nibbled on at night … it’s everywhere.”