General > General Technical Chat
Mouse plague deals fresh blow to Australian farmers
nctnico:
--- Quote from: james_s on May 28, 2021, 04:57:22 am ---Well they're native here, or at least they've been around for as long as Europeans have been. I'd much rather have a bunch of cats around than a bunch of birds and rodents and stuff, I never did like birds, they crap all over my car and wake me up in the morning but whatever. It's true you don't get something for nothing, and really the most destructive pests on this planet by far are humans. You have to spay/neuter the cats so they don't breed out of control.
--- End quote ---
Well... birds eat mosquitos. In the end the only real solution is to bring the natural balance back.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: nctnico on May 28, 2021, 03:35:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on May 28, 2021, 02:54:30 am ---Might it work to use scanning high power lasers (relatively cheap nowadays) to blind the mice so they'll have a harder time escaping from predators?
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Mice operate mostly by smell so blinding them won't help much
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It would make a good plot for a film though. :popcorn:
--- Quote from: nctnico on May 28, 2021, 03:40:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: james_s on May 28, 2021, 04:57:22 am ---Well they're native here, or at least they've been around for as long as Europeans have been. I'd much rather have a bunch of cats around than a bunch of birds and rodents and stuff, I never did like birds, they crap all over my car and wake me up in the morning but whatever. It's true you don't get something for nothing, and really the most destructive pests on this planet by far are humans. You have to spay/neuter the cats so they don't breed out of control.
--- End quote ---
Well... birds eat mosquitos. In the end the only real solution is to bring the natural balance back.
--- End quote ---
But how do we remove every creature which doesn't belong in Australia? It's far too late for that, given some of animals there are already extinct.
Stray Electron:
--- Quote from: nctnico on May 28, 2021, 03:40:15 pm ---
Well... birds eat mosquitos. In the end the only real solution is to bring the natural balance back.
--- End quote ---
Yes, birds do eat mosquitoes and cats do eat mice but a "natural balance" is not the answer unless you (humans) are prepared to live with hoards of mosquitoes and mice. In a normal balanced eco system, predators only eliminate some of the their prey and not all of them. if they did then the predators themselves would then die off.
What we as humans actually want isn't a "balanced" or a "natural" eco system but one in which the pests (mosquitoes, mice, etc) are completely removed. But with as little side effects as possible and without us having to do anything squeamish such as have to put salt of snails, or squish tomato worms or slugs. Or deal with mountains on dead mice.
helius:
--- Quote from: floobydust on May 28, 2021, 04:09:32 am ---He has some high volume mouse/rat traps that are basically variations of walking a plank and falling into water and drowning. The guy then puts the dead mice out in a field. Vultures, racoons, etc. have a dinner feast.
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I like that channel—it was where I learned about the Perlite in a bucket trap, which caught 3 rats at once when I used it.
Once the rodent climbs up to the rim of the bucket (provide a ramp or platform to make that easier), the surface of floating perlite appears to be solid. So they walk out across it to approach the bait (I put a Snickers bar on a large bottlecap so it would stay above the surface). Once they are standing on the perlite, it shifts like quicksand and they fall in and can't swim because of all the perlite above them.
Around here I haven't heard anyone complaining about killing rodents, which is a bit surprising given all the other crazy ideas afoot. What does get mentioned is that poisoning them has collateral effects on predators like hawks, which is counter-productive since predators are what control the pest population.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: Stray Electron on May 28, 2021, 06:15:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on May 28, 2021, 03:40:15 pm ---
Well... birds eat mosquitos. In the end the only real solution is to bring the natural balance back.
--- End quote ---
Yes, birds do eat mosquitoes and cats do eat mice but a "natural balance" is not the answer unless you (humans) are prepared to live with hoards of mosquitoes and mice. In a normal balanced eco system, predators only eliminate some of the their prey and not all of them. if they did then the predators themselves would then die off.
What we as humans actually want isn't a "balanced" or a "natural" eco system but one in which the pests (mosquitoes, mice, etc) are completely removed. But with as little side effects as possible and without us having to do anything squeamish such as have to put salt of snails, or squish tomato worms or slugs. Or deal with mountains on dead mice.
--- End quote ---
In most parts of the world, we don't get plagues of pests, because the ecosystems are in balance. People occasionally have problems with rats and mice in Europe, for example, but never massive swarms of them like in Australia, because there are plenty of natural predators. Plagues normally occur due to human interference, in the ecosystem. I accept there are a few exceptions, such as locusts, in Africa, but it isn't the norm.
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