Rat attacks ravage rice crops!

In parts of Northeastern India, Bangladesh and Burma rats have become a plague virtually wiping out rice crops. The attacks are termed a flood by locals. Many are quite fatalistic about the attacks or even consider them an act of God.

Recently bamboo trees that cover a large part of the area have gone to seed creating huge amounts of seeds that help feed the rats and create huge swarms who decimate the rice fields. These horrendous number occur about every fifty years when the bamboo trees create all the seed that helps produce the huge numbers. The stories about the rat flood were often not believed by scientists until now and the discovery of the relationship of the swarms to an overabundant food supply.

Approximately every fifty years the carpet of bamboo dies off.Bamboo forests cover 26,000 square kilometres of the region. Steve Belmain an ecologist at Greenwich University London said:"It's a way for the bamboo to ensure that the seeds survive," "But when the bamboo seed falls - you end up with 80 tonnes of seed per hectare on the ground."That's 80 tonnes of food just lying there waiting to be eaten." The most recent flowering began in 2004 and is expected to end in 2011. Since the last huge outbreak of rat armies was about fifty years ago many present residents were not even alive then and the rat infestation became the stuff of legends.

Government mount campaigns to help control the rats but the fatalism of the people and the huge numbers have resulted in limited success. In one community collection campaign more than 2.6 million rats were collected. Some farmers when they see the rats coming simply do not plant rice crops because they feel it is hopeless. In parts of Burma the effect of a cyclone made the situation even worse. Although scientists believe that there are ways to limit the rat population they are having difficulties convincing locals that the methods are worth while or that it is even desirable given that the plague is often regarded as an act of God.

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