Monday, July 09, 2007

Small terrorists finally make their move

Could this herald a larger coordinated attack?

2 Billion Chinese Mice Overrun Lake Area

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.

90 TONS? Are we talking about this size?

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or this?
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Either way, that's a lot of pissed off Chinese mice.

2 comments:

Steve Bates said...

Tribbles!

It must have been worse when it happened in the former Soviet Union. We've all heard the song, "That's the night that the mice went out in Georgia" ...

Where in the world are China's cats? in Chinese restaurants over here, waving their arms for good luck? Asimov once wrote an essay on how, millennia ago, cats saved human agriculture and thus human civilization by reducing the population of mice. Maybe it's time for the Chinese to renew their contract with the Feline Union...

ellroon said...

Only white porcelain Chinese cats are over here, frozen in the paw wave...

I'm sure we will see the 90 tons of mice ground up for pet food in a bit...