It's Flood Season in China...
...and as a result, the mice are swarming, fleeing their homes and invading new turf, consuming years' worth of rice crops. How many mice?
Billions of them. Yes—billions. And how does the Chinese government know this?
Because according to news reports, authorities have killed two billion mice, and that's only a fraction of the mice that are rampaging across Chinese rice paddies, laying waste to China's rice harvest.
One reason the mice—also known in China as rats—are swarming? Because China has damned so many of its rivers.
Because of a drought between September and June, the lake here receded early. "It seldom rained, and this created a haven for rats to live in and reproduce," said Xu Hongbin, the current village party secretary.
But the water was already low, because the Three Gorges Dam has reduced flows into the lake, village doctor Tao Zexian said. So last month when sluice gates were opened to relieve pressure from flooding in neighboring provinces, the suddenly rising lake sent billions of rodents scurrying into Binhu, like a scene from a horror movie.
You think that's horrifying? Wait till you read about the toxic poison locals are using to kill the mice—and what else it kills. Or how the snake population, which normally controls the mice, doesn't anymore because so many of the snakes have been killed by villagers for export to Guangdong province, where they're considered a delicacy. Same thing with owls. Used to control the mice; now widely eaten in the belief that doing so helps alleviate headaches; no longer control the mice.
All countries have their environmental issues, but China's happen on such a massive scale, they are particularly fascinating—and particularly ominous.
