According to British media reports, the rat infestation in Australia has become more and more intense, and rats have even begun to "eat rats" because they can't grab food.
Xavier Martin, vice president of the Farmers' Association of New South Wales in Australia, reportedly revealed that the number of rats in his field had reached extremes, and some rats had even begun to eat other rats because they could not grab food. "They will eat the heads of other rats and when they have eaten only their internal organs, they will leave," he said. Farmers then find the wreckage of the rats and clean them up. ”
The news was fried in Australia and caught the attention of a Good Animals Organisation (PETA), whose spokesman pleaded with farmers not to kill rats that destroyed their fields. A PETA spokesperson said: "These small animals with bright eyes and curiosity about things are just looking for food to survive, and they should not be deprived of the right to live because of the concept of human supremacy." At the same time, we urge farmers and residents not to poison these small animals. ”
The spokesman continued: "Do we have to poison rats and let them die in pain? They can't breathe, they bleed internally, and they die hours or days later? Or is it because they are not given enough food to let them kill each other? At the end of the day, we are an animal rights organization and we definitely don't want to see animals suffer in any way. ”
The spokesman's remarks also caught the attention of the Morrison administration. Morrison told reporters: "For farmers, it's just one trouble after another. I don't think they know anything about the plight of these farmers, and although I don't know either, I think they're very stupid. Deputy Prime Minister McCormack also said: "In this rat infestation, the real rats are the people who come up with this stupid idea." These people have never left the city, and when the fire burns to their butts, they don't know what to do, but they still point fingers at the farmers' practices. The best mice are dead rats. ”
According to previous reports, a farmer named Graham Jones in totnham Town, New South Wales, suddenly became popular online. It turned out that when Jones was cleaning up the equipment used to store grain, the swarms of rats were cleared out of the machine, and at one point there was a rather maddening "rat rain", and this scene was recorded by the camera camera.
Some NSW farmers have asked the local government for financial support to help them fight this "natural disaster". According to a survey, 30 percent of farmers have spent between $20,000 and $150,000 on controlling rat infestations. Pete Arkle, CEO of the NSW Farmers' Association, believes the state government should pay half of the cost of the rat bait.
However, Adam Marshall, head of the state's environment department, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the state government could do nothing about it either. "I read in media reports that this proposal would cost $600 million to $700 million, and after spending nearly $4.5 billion to support the drought, I don't have that much money on hand."
Proofreading Mou Yuankai