INDIA ARMY RAT WAR
June 1st, 2006
BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi THE INDIAN army has launched an extermination attack on an exploding rat population in India's northeastern hills, using mass poisoning and traps to avert an environmental disaster. Specialists say the unprecedented swarms of rats in the forests of Mizoram and Manipur states have been caused by the rare flowering of bamboo plants, which grow in thousands of square miles bordering Myanmar (Burma). Most bamboo species, including the local Melocanna baccifera live 50 years, but flower and fruit abundantly as they die. Rats gorge ...
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