Swarmchasers Rats. Nature documentary on 50-year cycle of rodent population outbreaks in South Asian countries of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar caused by bamboo masting events.
Posted by Steven Belmain on Friday 9 April 2021
Rodents are serious pests of agriculture, and occasional massive rodent population outbreaks ruin harvests. In years with rodent outbreaks, crop yield losses are reported as high as 48% to maize, sorghum and pulses in Tanzania. Some rodent outbreaks can cause nearly 100% crop loss and regional famine. A book about rodent outbreaks is available free to download, Rodent Outbreaks: Ecology and Impacts. It covers the different reasons why rodent populations can explode in different contexts related to climatic factors, natural cycles in plants that periodically mast large amounts of seed, or human responses to extreme weather events.