Cosgrove Says Australia Mouse Plague Farmers Face 14,000-Hectare Losses
Geoff Cosgrove says australia mouse plague farmers on his 14,000-hectare farm in Mingenew, Western Australia are spending time and money trying to keep mice out of crops, equipment and buildings. He said the rodents are costing him far more than bait alone, and this year's outbreak is worse than 2021.
"It's a big cost and it's not just the price of the bait," Cosgrove said. "They do play with your mind - running around at night, in the ceiling, the air conditioning units. You can hear them and you can smell them - it's like a decaying body."
Geoff Cosgrove In Mingenew
Cosgrove grows wheat, canola, lupin and barley and said he has only ever had to bait twice in 25 years of farming. Farmers in Western Australia first began reporting plague-like numbers of mice in March, and neighboring farmers in South Australia followed shortly after.
He said the current outbreak is "way worse than the one in 2021". Farmers across large swathes of Australia have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into replanting crops or laying down bait while mice run around homes and ravage grain fields.
Belinda Eastough In Nolba
Belinda Eastough, who runs a 5,500-hectare farm in Nolba, 80km northeast of Geraldton, said the mice were in her handbag during the 2021 plague. This year, she said, they are staying out in the paddocks where the food is.
"The last time [in 2021], they were in my handbag," Eastough said. "They were everywhere - in the floors, the walls, in the pantry. But I haven't had them in the pantry this year."
Eastough grows wheat, canola and lupin. She said last year brought a record-breaking harvest, and summer rain sparked young green shoots, leaving plenty for mice to eat. "Last year, we had a record-breaking harvest so that gives the mice a lot of food," she said. "Then we got some summer rain," and "So instead of just steak, they got steak and salad. Basically, the mice were in absolute mouse heaven."
Western Australia And South Australia
Eastough said her wheat is exported to South-East Asia for udon noodles or used in biscuits, bread and pasta at home. For farmers now dealing with mice in paddocks and around buildings, the immediate response has been baiting and replanting, while the pressure is spreading across grain-growing regions in both states.
The scale of the outbreak now turns on how long those food sources remain in the paddocks and whether farmers can limit losses before the mice move farther into stored grain and homes.
