Police in India have found an unlikely solution for a mouse problem: rats. Almost all over the state of Haryana, mice have been getting into just about anything they find appetizing, including official court documents, food supplies intended for people, and even the fiber sacks used to store confiscated narcotics. Landmine removal efforts near the border with Pakistan were jeopardized in 2002 by rodents moving anti-personnel mines from their mapped locations.
On a tip from a local citizen about a month ago, the police in Karnal, a district with a particularly high mouse infestation, bought two domesticated albino rats and released them into problem areas. It worked, the police said, “like magic.” They have since been releasing the rats every night into the storage room of official documents, and the mice have “just disappeared.”
No one knows why it works, but people sure are curious, and the police have already received inquiries from animal biologists working at labs in nearby towns. The superintendent of Karnal said, “the best part is that our guards don’t touch the documents or the poppy husk, we keep them well fed on a diet of fresh milk and roti.”
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Image: Flickr / pasotraspaso
March 10th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
As a former guppy raiser and a friend of mouse and rat breeders, I’m surprised the writer didn’t know that rats eat mice, at least they do around here.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Check back next month for the report on how they solve the rat problem with… cats.
Reminds me of the old nursery rhyme that begins “there was an old lady who swallowed a fly…”
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
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