

Twice a Century, India is Attacked by a Plague of Rats - jbail
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9198000/9198744.stm

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nodata
_Burma's ruling junta offered a small cash reward for each rat tail delivered
by the rat collection campaigns_

Great way to reward rat breeding!

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dboyd
Only if the reward is more than the cost of breeding the rat.

I grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada. While I missed out, my father always talked
about turning in gopher tails for money. My recollection is that my older
brother was able to do this, and he got $1 per tail. At that price, even in
the 1970s, I doubt you could have made any real money raising gophers.

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tarouter
Title sounds a little bit misleading. :) It only happens in tiny Indian state
of Mizoram.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_Mizoram_locator_map....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_Mizoram_locator_map.svg)

From the article - "more than 26,000 square kilometres throughout the north-
eastern state of Mizoram, extending into the Chin Hills of Burma and the
Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh"

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camiller
_The rats can produce a litter every three weeks and the baby rats reach
sexual maturity in just 50-60 days._

Almost sounds like a star trek episode.

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gregpilling
You mean "Trouble with Tribbles" ?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_With_Tribbles>

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ajays
India is a large country. This happens in a tiny part of Northeast India. The
title is sensationalist.

It reminds me of the cicadas that come out once every couple of decades in the
US. You don't hear "US is attacked by cicadas" when that happens!

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melling
People aren't afraid of cicadas.

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steve19
Australia has a mouse plague of epic proportions every four years. This video
showing the mice is just incredible:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH4EFgRB4bU>

