Rat Plague In Queensland

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31539, 29 November 1967, Page 17

Rat Plague In Queensland

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) DARWIN, Nov. 27. Huge rats some lOin long that “go through trees like beavers,” terrify cats, and attack people during their sleep are infesting Queensland’s fertile beef - grazing Barkly tableland. People in the area are killing the rats by the thousands in their efforts to stop the damage to farms, storehouses, trees and gardens. The plague is one of the worst experienced.

The rats will stop at noth- I ing in their foraging for more i and more food. I With remarkable ingenuity in one instance they scaled 1 drums covered with chicken 1 mesh that contained plants, i knocked off the stones hold- I ing the mesh and ate the i drums’ contents. Constable Harry Cox and i his wife, Christine, have been the worst hit. 1 They have killed 2500 rats J In the last six months at the 1 police station manned by Mr i Cox. i Mrs Cox has caught rats up 1 to lOin long. Her children 1 are confined to the house because of the danger. i She said she had replanted I her vegetable garden five ; times in six months. ; She was buying rat poison

by the drum, using 1 Jib each night, and was also trapping the rats. An English schoolmistress, Miss Jay Inkster, who teaches at Avon Downs, one of Australia’s largest properties, about 400 miles southeast of Darwin, said: “It’s hideous. I have never seen anything like it. “The rats are into everything,” she said. “One night I scrubbed a pair of sandals, three pairs of shoes and a pair of thongs and put them out to dry. Next morning I had one sandal left. The rats had eaten the rest. “They have eaten rubber doormats at the school, a football, two cartons of sandsoap, a carton of soap pwder and skipping ropes. “Fortunately they cannot

, get into the school or my living caravan,” she said. The rats have' ringbarked trees around water bores and have attacked drovers and stockmen sleeping out in the open. The plague is at its worst between the Queensland border and a distance of 250 miles stretching to Rockhampton Downs Station. Motorists see hundreds of the rodents in their headlights every night. The rats live in fissures in the dry blacksoil plains. Dogs kill a few, but most of the rats are too big for cats to tackle. A spokesman for the Northern Territory Administration said it was hoped the plague would disappear -with the wet season rains.