{"id":11277,"date":"2026-05-14T09:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:45:22","slug":"roads-of-dead-mice-as-plague-blights-standards-of-living-in-wa-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11277\/","title":{"rendered":"Roads of dead mice as plague blights standards of living in WA towns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Driving along roads ravaged by a devastating mouse plague north-east of Perth is like “popping bubble wrap”, residents say, with the rodents affecting every aspect of their daily lives.<\/p>\n

Fighting the plague has become an uphill battle in the farming town of Morawa, and there are fears the hordes of mice could spread further toward Perth if not controlled.<\/p>\n

\"Dead<\/p>\n

Dead mice are seen in a swimming pool in Morawa, 370 kilometres north east of Perth. (Supplied: Karen Chappel)<\/p>\n

“We’re talking thousands,” Morawa shire president Karen Chappel told 102.5 ABC Perth.<\/p>\n

“You know when you get that bubble wrap and you pop it? When you’re driving at night-time, that’s what it feels like.<\/p>\n

“You’re driving over mice that are popping.<\/p>\n

“All the snakes that you come across, they’re dugites but they’re like carpet pythons because they’re so full of mice.<\/p>\n

“It’s just horrid, infiltrating people’s homes and businesses.”<\/p>\n

Mice in beds<\/p>\n

Ms Chappel said the plague was impacting several local government areas, including Northampton, Mullewa, Chapman Valley, Mingenew and Perenjori.<\/p>\n

“I feel for our farmers \u2026 I feel in our community, in our town site, people are living with mice,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Karen<\/p>\n

Morawa Shire President Karen Chappel says the mice have infiltrated residents’ homes and businesses. (ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

“People are talking about having mice in their beds, there’s mice in your cupboards \u2026 I opened my recipe drawer the other day to get the recipes out and the mice have eaten many of my recipes.”<\/p>\n

She wants the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority [APVMA] to allow the use of stronger rodent baits.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Farmer Robert Mitchell scoops up dead mice from his shed.\u00a0 (ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

“We’re catching, we’re trapping, but we just can’t win the fight, and it starts with the fact we’ve got to get the APVMA to give the farmers permission to use stronger baits,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You can’t trap thousands of mice.”<\/p>\n

Minister disappointed<\/p>\n

WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis said she was disappointed in the time it had taken the APVMA to respond to an emergency application for farmers to use stronger baits.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jackie Jarvis expresses her disappointment in how long it takes the APVMA to respond to an emergency application.\u00a0 (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

“I’ve been trying to get action for weeks,” she told ABC Radio Perth.<\/p>\n

“I’m incredibly disappointed that we’re more than two weeks on and we don’t have an answer.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Farmers want to be able to use stronger baits to eradicate the mice, but permission to do so has been slow to arrive. (ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

Farmers are seeking permits to use 50-gram zinc phosphide baits, rather than the current 25-gram baits.<\/p>\n

Ms Jarvis said the lower-grade baits were not effective.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A CSIRO report from March 2026 detailing house mouse abundance across grain-growing regions. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

She said the permit farmers were applying for was short-term and would last for a few months, but in the weeks since they applied in late April, some growers had undergone seeding with the weaker 25-gram baits.<\/p>\n

\"Dead<\/p>\n

Dead mice floating in a bucket of water.\u00a0 (Supplied: Karen Chappel)<\/p>\n

“They’ll have to spend tens of thousands of dollars reseeding and putting out the stronger baits and you know obviously this is on top of a fuel crisis,” Ms Jarvis said.<\/p>\n

People leaving town, says local MP<\/p>\n

The APVMA said it was working towards approving the use of the stronger bait.<\/p>\n

“Before a permit can be issued, the APVMA must be satisfied that the proposed use is safe for people, the environment, and trade. These assessments are currently underway,” a spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“We anticipate a decision in the near term.”<\/p>\n

\"Mice<\/p>\n

Grain growers in parts of Western Australia are overrun by mice.<\/p>\n

Nationals MP Shane Love, who is the local member, said it was a mouse plague of proportions not seen for many years in WA.<\/p>\n

“The community is at its wits end,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The inundation is leading people to actually leaving town because they’re so frustrated and finding it unpleasant to be there.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Shane Love spoke about the plague outside Parliament House in Perth. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

The WA outbreak comes after several major mouse plagues across Australia.<\/p>\n

In 1993, Australia’s worst-ever mouse plague caused an estimated $96 million worth of damage<\/a>, particularly in New South Wales and parts of South Australia and Victoria.<\/p>\n

Another well-publicised plague invaded homes, towns and farms in NSW and Queensland in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Driving along roads ravaged by a devastating mouse plague north-east of Perth is like “popping bubble wrap”, residents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12165,12158,12159,10104,12161,12166,12164,12160,12152,12151,12153,12157,12154,12155,12156,12162,3425,335,463,12150,12163,464],"class_list":{"0":"post-11277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-perth","8":"tag-apvma","9":"tag-australia-mice-plague","10":"tag-get-rid-of-mice","11":"tag-hantavirus","12":"tag-house-mice","13":"tag-jackie-jarvis","14":"tag-karen-chappel","15":"tag-mice-control","16":"tag-mice-infestation","17":"tag-mice-plague","18":"tag-mice-plague-australia","19":"tag-mice-plague-qld","20":"tag-mice-plague-south-australia","21":"tag-mice-plague-victoria","22":"tag-mice-plague-western-australia","23":"tag-morawa","24":"tag-mouse-plague","25":"tag-perth","26":"tag-perth-news","27":"tag-rural-news","28":"tag-shane-love","29":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}