medpundit |
||
|
Thursday, August 09, 2007Rural northern Spain has been stricken by a plague of millions of voles that have devastated lettuce, potato and barley crops and threaten to invade vineyards, public parks and even urban centres. Farmers in the high plateau around Leon, north of Madrid, have demanded massive doses of poison to exterminate the ubiquitous rodents. But health workers and environmentalists warn that the cure might be worse than the disease, with poison threatening wildlife and posing a worse risk for humans than piles of dead voles. Hundreds of exasperated farmers, carrying live voles, protested outside the regional government headquarters in Valladolid this week, breaking a glass door with the intention of freeing the creatures into the offices. But police charged and scattered the demonstrators. The wretched creatures are eating all the crops and causing some cases of tularemia. They're also providing entertainment for the local urchins: Local children have developed their own anti-vole technique. "You surround them with two or three of us, then stamp on them or hit them with a stick," said Alvaro Garcia, 11. Every night Alvaro and his friends go hunting in Fresno del Viejo, one of areas near Valladolid worst affected, and despatch some 200 voles. posted by Sydney on 8/09/2007 09:47:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|