{"id":2264,"date":"2026-04-30T18:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T18:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/2264\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T18:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T18:24:11","slug":"aussie-community-unnerved-by-underground-threat-that-springs-to-life-at-night-this-is-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/2264\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie community unnerved by underground threat that springs to life at night: ‘This is too much’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hidden beneath the fertile soil of a sprawling farming region in Australia\u2019s west<\/a> is a destructive threat that\u2019s unnerving locals.<\/p>\n

Farmer Belinda Eastough told Yahoo News the ground feels strangely soft as she walks the paddocks of her Geraldton property,<\/a> 370km north of Perth.<\/p>\n

Underground is a network of burrows containing millions of mice<\/a>, which sleep during the day and then feast on crops at night while farmers are sleeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played football up at Northampton on Saturday, and the ground was all squelchy because the mice have burrowed down into the oval,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt night, apparently, they all pop up like meerkats.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s a lightness to her description of the mouse plague<\/a> in Western Australia, beneath her tough exterior, she\u2019s holding back a measure of stress and deep frustration.<\/p>\n

Not only are farmers fighting a war on invasive rodents, the weather outlook for next season is also bad<\/a>, and fuel and fertiliser prices have soared<\/a> because of the war in Iran.<\/a><\/p>\n

Estimates suggest there are over 4,000 mice and burrows per hectare, in places like Northampton, north of Geraldton, and between Albany and Esperance.<\/p>\n

When the mouse plague began early in 2026, they also entered homes, causing severe mental stress.<\/p>\n

Eastough is allowing two feral cats to live in her roof cavity, because they\u2019re doing a \u201cmighty fine job\u201d of scaring the mice away.<\/p>\n

In videos of the Geraldton region below, a carpet of mice scurries under grain silos, freaking out those behind the camera.<\/p>\n

In one, a person can be heard squealing, \u201cI\u2019m actually speechless\u201d, while in another, someone stutters, \u201cThis is too much\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mice scurry from paddocks and into homes<\/p>\n

The situation sounds like something out of a Hollywood horror movie, but it is having a very real impact on the lives and finances of farmers.<\/p>\n

The 2020\/2021 mouse plague<\/a> in NSW cost the economy upwards of a $1 billion<\/a> and caused severe stress.<\/p>\n

Eastough works as an agronomist and has seen the problems mice are causing at multiple sites around the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a client who came back the next day after seeding, and the mice had eaten out the corners of his paddock overnight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

RELATED<\/p>\n

The rule of thumb is to bait when there are two burrows per hundred metre transect, but she\u2019s seeing around 20, and in some cases up to 50.<\/p>\n

\"Left:<\/p>\n

A field in the Geraldton region is pockmarked with mouse burrows.<\/p>\n

(Supplied)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the worst Eastough has seen mice in the paddocks over three decades on her property.<\/p>\n

She and other farmers are baiting as they seed, to try and lessen the damage caused by the rodents.<\/p>\n

To reduce the likelihood of killing owls, eagles and tawny frogmouths that are feasting on the mice, farmers are using the first-generation poison, zinc phosphide.<\/a><\/p>\n

Stomach-churning description of driving through mouse plague<\/p>\n

Steve Henry is a research officer specialising in mice at Australia\u2019s national science agency, the CSIRO.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s seen the devastation firsthand, not only in Western Australia, and has heard stories from shocked locals as he\u2019s travelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cA truckie described driving between Albany and Esperance as like driving on rice bubbles,\u201d he told Yahoo News.<\/p>\n

When he drove across South Australia,<\/a> mouse numbers were bad but not as high as in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

But high enough to catch multiple mice in a single trap.<\/p>\n

Henry is urging farmers to bait ahead of winter to help keep numbers down.<\/p>\n

\u201cMice stop breeding over winter, and they just go into survival mode,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you get a low level of winter survival, when they start breeding in the spring, they start from a lower population base.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, it takes them longer to build numbers where they cause damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worryingly, both he and Eastough have documented examples of mice continuing to breed in the lead-up to winter in both states, likely due to the availability of food caused by unexpected rain.<\/p>\n

Perfect storm that triggered mouse plague<\/p>\n

Multiple factors are causing the mouse plague in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

Henry believes the first change that favoured the mice was the adoption of the no-till farming movement decades ago, a regenerative type of cropping that doesn\u2019t disturb the soil with ploughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get lots of food left behind in these systems, and it doesn\u2019t take very much food to sustain a lot of mice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo 150kg of background food per-hectare equates to 50,000 mouse days of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother way of spinning that is 150 kilos effectively supports 1000 mice per hectare through 50 days of summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both he and Eastough agree that a more recent driver of the plague was the sudden destocking of sheep from paddocks.<\/p>\n

Truck drivers and shearers all left the state<\/a> after the federal government signalled it would ban the live export of sheep due to animal welfare concerns.<\/p>\n

Farmers quickly adapted by sowing crops in their fields, dramatically increasing the availability of feed.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the region also experienced regular summer rain, supporting millions of thirsty mice and the plants they eat.<\/p>\n

Single event that\u2019s worse than a mouse plague<\/p>\n

While things are tough right now for farmers, Eastough concedes the situation isn\u2019t as bad as crippling droughts.<\/p>\n

When there\u2019s no rain, crops die, animals waste away as food isn\u2019t available, and there\u2019s nothing farmers can do but watch on.<\/p>\n

During mouse plagues, farmers have to be active in baiting and protecting their crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I\u2019m living the dream,\u201d Eastough said.<\/p>\n

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