giant gerbils?
Aug. 22nd, 2003 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashMy mother passed this on to me. She claims this is not a fake. Foot-and-a-half long gerbils. Wow.
Eagles battle giant gerbils
19/08/2003 20:30
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is deploying eagles to control giant gerbils that have damaged an area of grassland larger than Switzerland.
The China Daily said on Tuesday burrowing by great gerbils (Rhombomys opimus) and other rodents had damaged 4.76 million hectares (11.76 million acres) of grassland in the far west. About 33,000 hectares (81,540 acres) had been completely destroyed.
"It has been the most severe rodent disaster since 1993," Xiong Ling, an official with the region's headquarters for controlling locusts and rodents, was quoted as saying.
To combat the onslaught, the government was using poison and raising eagles to eat the burrowers now reaching the peak of their reproductive cycle, the paper said, adding as many as 790 burrow holes had been found per hectare in some areas.
Great gerbils, found in many parts of Central Asia, can grow up to 400 mm (16 in) from head to tail, the Web site of Britain‚s National Gerbil Society at www.gerbils.co.uk said.
In addition to being an agricultural pest, the gerbils are known to carry bubonic plague, it said.
Eagles battle giant gerbils
19/08/2003 20:30
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is deploying eagles to control giant gerbils that have damaged an area of grassland larger than Switzerland.
The China Daily said on Tuesday burrowing by great gerbils (Rhombomys opimus) and other rodents had damaged 4.76 million hectares (11.76 million acres) of grassland in the far west. About 33,000 hectares (81,540 acres) had been completely destroyed.
"It has been the most severe rodent disaster since 1993," Xiong Ling, an official with the region's headquarters for controlling locusts and rodents, was quoted as saying.
To combat the onslaught, the government was using poison and raising eagles to eat the burrowers now reaching the peak of their reproductive cycle, the paper said, adding as many as 790 burrow holes had been found per hectare in some areas.
Great gerbils, found in many parts of Central Asia, can grow up to 400 mm (16 in) from head to tail, the Web site of Britain‚s National Gerbil Society at www.gerbils.co.uk said.
In addition to being an agricultural pest, the gerbils are known to carry bubonic plague, it said.
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Date: 2003-08-22 01:23 pm (UTC)Well - at least when it is all over, the eagle population won't suddenly explode too.
In his secret lab somewhere beneath the Gobi desert...
Date: 2003-08-24 10:01 pm (UTC)