Canberra. The stench of decay hangs over the New South Wales grain belt. A plague of mice, numbering in the billions, is devouring crops and infrastructure.
But this is no ordinary infestation. These mice are dying en masse, leaving rotting corpses that contaminate harvests and spread disease. Farmers are desperate.
They are calling it a ‘bio-hazard crisis’. And now, Whitehall is involved. British agricultural experts have been quietly consulted.
Sources tell me the Foreign Office’s science and innovation network was activated last week. A team from Rothamsted Research, the world’s oldest agricultural research station, has been in contact with Australian authorities. The issue is resistance.
The mice have evolved. Standard poisons are failing. The carcasses are piling up.
‘The smell is unbearable,’ one farmer told me. ‘It gets in your clothes, your hair. You can taste it.
’ The political fallout is mounting. The Australian government is under pressure to approve emergency use of a banned rodenticide. But environmental groups are fighting it.
They warn of secondary poisoning to native wildlife. For the British team, the data is critical. Climate change is driving these plagues.
Hotter, drier conditions are creating ideal breeding grounds. The lessons learned here could apply to UK farms in years to come. Backbench MPs are watching closely.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has requested a briefing. One Tory MP called it a ‘harbinger of things to come.’ The PM’s spokesman declined to comment.
But the message from Downing Street is clear: they are monitoring the situation. For now, the mice are winning. And the bodies keep falling.
