Environment - Two Billion Mice?!

The rising Yangtze river has caused Lake Dongting in Central China to flood the homes of some two BILLION field mice. The mice responded by invading villages near the lake. Via Associated Press, China's Xinhua News Agency reports:

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

The rodent problem was expected to worsen as more floods were forecast for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake.

Two billion field mice? So far, 90 tons of the little rodents have been killed. How will the villagers dispose of them all? What about the likely spread of disease? Field mice have been linked to hantavirus, Junin virus, Machupo virus, and possibly Marburg virus, as well.

Water levels along the coastline, in rivers, and in lakes, are changing. Some, like the lake in Chile, are disappearing, or like Lake Victoria in Africa, are greatly lowered. Others, like the Yangtze are swollen with floods. We can look forward to many more such incidents and in the near future, at that, while the idiot deniers like James Inhofe (R-NotOK) meander about with their fingers firmly cemented into their ears and their pieholes flapping a "La la la, can't hear you!" response to every warning.

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