CSIRO's Mouse Alert app stretches for more than 1000km from southeast Queensland to the NSW-Victorian border. Image / News Corp Australia
Australia's government science agency is encouraging farmers and residents in rural towns to use an app it created several years ago to track mice sightings as authorities scramble to win the fight against the costly plague on the country's east coast.
An online platform called Mouse Alert displays hundreds of
red circles indicating rodent infestations in a 1000km stretch across Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
The app was created by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 2014, but authorities had no idea how much it would be needed seven years later as swarms of mice terrorise rural towns in central NSW.
Farmers are having their crops destroyed and homes invaded by waves of mice that have bred exponentially after a summer of heavy rain produced high crop yields and cooler weather – ripe conditions for the pests.
