Fight Against Vole at China's Yellow River Head

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 14, 2001

Fight Against Vole at China's Yellow River Head

At the source of the Yellow River, China's second longest, nearly 400 people in the Madoi County of northwest China's Qinghai Province are devoting themselves to a fierce campaign of vole eradication.

Li Faji, Madoi's deputy magistrate in charge of the campaign, said that "the movement, which started on November 18 and ends on December 20, has mobilized more than 14,000 participants".

"Costing more than 600,000 yuan (about 72,000 U.S. dollars), the campaign aims to eradicate rodents from about 27,000 hectares of local grassland where they have caused severe environmental damage," Li said.

Campaign participants mainly scatter bait mixed with bio-toxin, around the pastures to kill the various species of rodents.

Though the temperature has fallen to 20 Celsius degrees below zero in Madoi, the rodent catchers have not relaxed their "human versus rodent" campaign, carefully combing one pasture after another around Madoi's ten villages.

According to Li, drought and other factors created by men have made rodent infestation increasingly serious in recent years.

"Tens of thousands of rodents have taken over large patches of grazing from local herdsmen, resulting in deterioration of grassland vegetation," said Li.

Statistics show that Madoi had over 1.3 million hectares of grassland severely damaged by rodents this year with a density of 150 rodents per hectare.

"Each rodent on average eats 47 kilograms of fresh grass annually, which leaves flocks and herds short of forage grass," Li said.

During the same period last year, Madoi carried out its first rodent eradication exercise, which was very successful and covered about 58,000 hectares of grazing land.

"In the baited pastures, the rodent death rate was over 95 percent, which saved 26 million kilograms of fresh grass from rodent damage," Li said.

However, there were still 27,000 hectares of pastures not covered due to lack of labor and fund.

"Therefore, Madoi's government ecological administration office decided to launch the campaign again this year to annihilate the rodents," Li added.

In addition, mouse eradication exercises have been undertaken in some Chinese cities recently. The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in south China has just carried out a large campaign to kill mice, which have caused an epidemic of hemorrhagic fever in the city as they carry the virus causing the disease.

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