Blue Mountains now...on their way to Sydney via Hamlin
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JUNE 9, 2021
The New South Wales Government has announced another $100 million in funding to tackle the state’s shocking mouse plague.
The rodent infestation has left many farmers struggling, and it is feared that even the current cold snap might not be enough to significantly dent mice numbers … and that’s also very bad news for campers.
In places like the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, the tiny Mus Musculus Domesticus – also known as the house mouse – has made its way to previously unseen wilderness locations.
Several bushwalkers walkers have told the Blue Mountains Gazette that they have reported seeing dozens of mice near their food and tents when packing up after a night in these locations.
Hikers have reported hungry mice even chewing through their tents and backpacks to get to food. Campers have taken to hanging their food bags in trees.
On local resident, Liz Charlton, told the Blue Mountains Gazette that she had been camping for two decades in the Blue Mountains and had never seen anything like it.
“We were recently out at Mobbs Soak in the Wild Dog mountains and the mice were everywhere,” she said. “We had mice running under and over the tents and everywhere in between … the mice had got in and were eating things like toothpaste and a packet of Panadol.”
CSIRO Health and Biosecurity senior research officer and resident mouse plague expert, Steve Henry advised bushwalkers to ‘keep your food in hard plastic containers and your tent zipped up’.
He also said anyone with a car should “make sure you close the doors of your vehicles all the time … they eat wiring out of the cars”.
The new $100 million commitment from the NSW government will allow farmers suffering from the mouse plague to claim up to $10,000 in rebates to purchase zinc phosphide to control mice.
The cash injections triples the money pledged by the state government to date on combating the mouse’s plague.