India Rat Population explosion
Pastor Dale Morgan
India Rat Population explosion*
By WASBIR HUSSAIN
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 16, 2006; 2:43 PM
GAUHATI, India -- A rare flowering of wild bamboo plants has caused the
rat population to explode in northeastern India, raising fears of famine
as the rodents rampage through rice paddies, officials said Thursday.
An alert has been declared in Mizoram state, with authorities supplying
rat poison free to nearly 10,000 farmers and paying them to make bamboo
traps, said local Agriculture Minister H. Rammawi.
"The situation in Mizoram state is alarming. Farmers are killing rats in
tons after we directed them to do so using poison or locally made
traps," Rammawi told The Associated Press.
The rat population is growing rapidly as they feast on flowering wild
bamboo plants _ a phenomenon that usually occurs roughly every 50 years,
Rammawi said. The last time the bamboo flowered in the region, in 1959,
a famine ensured, he said.
"Whenever the rare bamboo flowering occurs, the rats multiply in great
numbers as they feed on these flowers and then go on rampaging the crops
and granaries," said C. Rokhuma, a community leader.
State authorities have been supplying rat poison free to nearly 10,000
farmers and providing them cash to make bamboo traps, the minister said.
"Rats poisoned to death are buried by the villagers, while those trapped
are being eaten by some of them," said James Lalsiamliana, the head of
Mizoram's Rodent Control Cell.
The state government has invited experts from Australia, Canada and
Japan to study the bamboo flowering and to devise methods to control the
rat population.
Ten Japanese experts are doing research on the rare variety of bamboo to
find out why it flowers after a gap of nearly five decades, Lalsiamliana
said.
Australian and Canadian experts have helped identify 14 species of
rodents found in Mizoram, although up to 30 different species are
believed to exist in the state.
Mizoram, a state of less than 2 million people, borders Myanmar and
Bangladesh.