2 Billion mice over run Chinese lake region

[Perky]

BEIJING (AP) -- People living in communities surrounding a large shallow lake have been overrun by field mice after floodwaters drove the rodents out of islands on the lake, state media reported Monday.

The mouse invasion began on June 23 when the Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in central China's Dongting Lake and submerging mouse holes on lake islands, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Now, an estimated 2 billion mice are ravaging crops in 22 counties around the lake, and authorities were rushing to construct walls and ditches to keep the rodents out. Residents have killed more than 2.3 million field mice - or 90 tons of the rodents, Xinhua said.

In Hunan province's Yiyang County, a ditch along the lakeshore was filled with mice. Residents were using clubs and shovels to beat them to death, while others scooped the furry animals out using fishing nets.

Mice have already damaged dikes and ruined crops in areas where authorities were slow to build walls and ditches, Xinhua said.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_MICE?SITE=CATOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-07-09-09-46-18

[NewJeffCT]

1. Mice in China, crickets in the Sudan...

pretty soon, dogs & cats will be living together and it will be mass hysteria.

[CottonBear]

2. 2 billion mice?

They neeed a couple of million cats.

[pushycat]

8. They harvest fur from cats... money trumps security

[havocmom]

9. And maybe they fed them food made with the contaminated gluten too

Kill the cats, there is ALWAYS a price to be paid.

[Larkspur]

3. Wow! 2 Billion Mice. That's almost a 1-to-1 ration of mice to Chinese human

Wonder how many of these mice bodies will end up in cat food made there?

[Perky]

5. ummm try closer to 2:1

[Squatch]

4. Ugh. Mice carry hantavirus

[leftofthedial]

6. The Curse of Disney

[emald]

7. Mice?

No think of them as chicken, because thats what the chinese will do with them, turn them into export food.

[whistle]

10. How many mice I wonder are there in the U.S. of A.?

...I'll bet that there are no fewer than 100 billion spread across the country. Most live in low population density areas where food in the form of seeds and nuts which are the basic diet of the rodent are plentiful. When the habitat is disturbed by a catastrophic event such as floods or fire. the rodents flee in mass. The classic biblical event of pestilence

[ShaneGR]

11. Time to stop eating the cats....

Srry, had to say it.

[msongs]

12. mice are edible nt

[lonestarnot]

13. sold in frozen food section in packages currently imported by Walmart

:sarcasm: