Overview
- CSIRO monitoring on South Australia's Adelaide Plains reports 100 to 200 mice per hectare, with some sites capped at 400 to 600 by trap saturation.
- Risk areas now extend from Geraldton to Esperance in Western Australia and into southern Queensland, with Western Australia’s Kwinana West rated high risk.
- A plague is defined as 800 mice per hectare, and researchers say fast growth could push numbers toward that level within weeks.
- Farmers report mice digging along seed furrows and eating grain before it sprouts, which creates bare rings around holes and threatens scarce canola seed.
- Agronomists note a jump in bait orders and suppliers are staging zinc phosphide stocks, as growers also face fuel and fertiliser strains and recall about A$1 billion in losses during the 2021 plague.