China struck by plague of roughly 2 BILLION rats.

[BreweryYardRat]

And, no, that's not a typo.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070711-china-rats.html

***
When the Yangtze River flooded on June 23, the water level rose in Dongting Lake, which sits along the river south of Wuhan in central China's Hunan Province.

About two billion rodents have been coursing through the region, according to Chinese media reports, although it's not clear how this number was determined.

The rats have ravaged at least 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) of farmland by eating the roots and stems of crops, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported.

In response, several news reports note, residents in the district of Dahu have killed more than 2.3 million rats—or 90 tons of the rodents—since the invasion began.

To combat the problem, local authorities have distributed rat poison in the affected areas.
***




Yeesh. They can't even control it with cats/dogs, because a: the government-distributed rat poison killed a lot of them, according to another article, and b: starving rats will attack their normal predators if the numbers are sufficiently in the rats' favor, as they are here.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Hmmm. Looking at the wrapper of my Rat-On-A-Stick, I see that it's from China.

Those bastards. Can't the FDA do ANYTHING right?

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. Yum. Chocolate or peanut butter coated?

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. Chocolate 'n Peanut Butter SWIRL Rat-On-A-Stick, baby!

Oh yeah, we know how to live. Churn the butter, throw the dice...

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. See how great Mer'ka is?

We've got only... le'see, what's 28 percent of 300 million?

[hfojvt]

3. look at the problems we are having

with just two at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Aren't rats edible? Sounds like a food source.

[bumblebee1]

11. You're referring to the two at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as rats?

Why would you insult rats like that? Rats are highly intelligent creatures. Intelligent is not what I would refer to the two at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[Critters2]

4. Didn't China go on a dog-killing spree not long ago, too?

Something to do with rabies.

They should feed those rats some of the crap they were putting in our pet food.

[idgiehkt]

9. really, because of rabies

I guess the rats were like "we've got your rabies right here, bucko".

those poor people...I don't know if it is the same provinces but dogs will run off what rats they can. Rat poison today will kill just about anything that ingests it...they might have a 'silent spring' situation going on over there. I know they have to kill those rats somehow though. What a nightmare.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. Saw thie amazing sight on the news. People were sweeping swarms rats with brooms

I think one rat is cute but 2 billion? It was an icky sight.

[Kali]

7. sounds like a better pet food ingredient than what they were using.

[idgiehkt]

10. In other news

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2007-07-16T104424Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-284941-1.xml

BEIJING (Reuters) - Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported 2 billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.

Rats had been doing a roaring trade thanks to strong supply over the last two weeks, the China News Service quoted vendors as saying.

"Recently there have been a lot of rats... Guangzhou people are rich and like to eat exotic things, so business is very good," it quoted a vendor as saying, referring to the capital of Guangdong province, where people are reputed to eat anything that moves.

Some vendors, who declined to reveal their names, had asked people from a village in Hunan province, near Dongting Lake, to sell them live rats, the Beijing News said on Monday.

[Whoa_Nelly]

12. Yikes!

Shades o' the 1665 bubonic plague in England!

[Blue_Tires]

13. rat soup??