Burmese Language
Rodent ‘migration’ sparks disaster fears
An apparent mass migration of mice away from waterways in central Burma has caused locals to question whether a natural disaster is looming.
Mice are moving “in their thousands” away from lakes and reservoirs in central Burma’s Bago and Mandalay division and towards urban areas. One man reporting seeing fleets of mice on the Mandalay-to-Naypyidaw highway.
A local in Bago division’s Dike Oo township said that outlying villages had witnessed terns of thousands of mice leave the areas close to Kawliya and Bawni reservoirs and head towards villages.
“They looked like they were migrating. They have white fur on their chest and are running with their tails straight; they looked as if they were running for their lives,” he said.
“We don’t know whether this [is a sign of] a weather disaster, natural disaster or damaged reservoir. But elderly people are saying the mice are fleeing from a disaster of some sort. Now is not yet [the time of the year] for disasters but the mice were running for their lives.”
Migration of animals is closely tied to weather patterns, but evidence of mass movement being a forewarning of natural disasters is less clear. Famously, a freak migration of hundreds of thousands of frogs in central China in early May 2008 pre-empted the country’s worst earthquake in a generation.
Dike Oo residents said the arrival of mice would have little impact on farming as late rains have delayed the growing of crops, although there had been some damage to bean plants.
Locals also expressed concern about the possible spread of diseases, with one man claiming that Burmese authorities had done little to tackle the problem.
An ongoing famine in Burma’s northwestern Chin state has been exacerbated in recent years by the bi-centurial flowering of bamboo plants, which attracts rats in their millions.
Thousands of acres of crops have been lost in Chin state since the flowering began in 2007. The Canada-based Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO) said that the fallout from the last mass bamboo flowering in Burma reportedly caused the deaths of 10,000 to 15,000 in India’s neighbouring Mizoram state. The UN claims that Chin state needs around 23,000 tons of food aid to counter the famine.
Similarly, in September last year the UN warned of the potential damage to crop harvests in Burma’s southern Irrawaddy delta from a rodent infestation. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Burmese government had instructed farmers to kill up to 15 rats per day, and submit their tails to local authorities, or risk being fined.
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This will be the straw that breaks the backs of the Burmese a rodent infestation, I wonder if that not so subtle suggestion about farmers killing rodents would in fact count Thitsaphout Than Shwe, after all he is a rodent blight on humanity and a traitor of the Burmese people.
Lemmings became notoriously famous because of unsubstantiated myths that they commit mass suicide when they migrate. The myth may exist in more variations. In most forms it does not appear to claim a conscious suicide but rather accidental mass death due to various factors. However in popular culture the alleged behavior is usually referred to as “mass suicide” and hence discussed here as “mass suicide myth”.
Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. Lemmings can and do swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat.[7] This fact combined with the unexplained fluctuations in the population of Norwegian lemmings may have contributed to the development of the myth.
The myth of lemming “mass suicide” is long-standing and has been popularized by a number of factors. In 1955, Disney Studio illustrator Carl Barks drew an Uncle Scrooge adventure comic with the title “The Lemming with the Locket”. This comic, which was inspired by a 1954 American Mercury article, showed massive numbers of lemmings jumping over Norwegian cliffs.[8][9] Even more influential was the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness, which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature, in which staged footage was shown with lemmings jumping into sure death after faked scenes of mass migration.[10] A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, Cruel Camera, found that the lemmings used for White Wilderness were flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where they did not jump off the cliff, but in fact were launched off the cliff using a turntable.[11]
In more recent times, the myth is well-known as the basis for the failed Apple Computer 1985 Super Bowl commercial “Lemmings” and the popular 1991 video game Lemmings, in which the player must stop the lemmings from mindlessly marching over cliffs or into traps.
Because of their association with this odd behavior, lemming suicide is a frequently used metaphor in reference to people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion, with potentially dangerous or fatal consequences. This metaphor is seen many times in popular culture, such as in the video game Lemmings, and in episodes of Red Dwarf and Adult Swim’s show Robot Chicken. In Urban Terror, falling to one’s death is called doing the lemming thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming
i feel sorry for the rats, it will be better if make frozen n export to china, chinese eat rats, dogs, cats, very thing that could be eaten, it will be good income for rat exporter, hahahah
I wonder why people try to connect with rodent migration and military government. If you live there, you know it is a serious omen whether it is coming or not…Not a time for jokes or self-satisfying analogies!!!!!
twh’s stories on lemmings are interesting and educating. But they are short-tailed rodents with furry feet of circumpolar countries, known for habitual migrations.
Burmese mice are smaller, as dixtinct from paddy-field rats which are much bigger. The rodents in the photo are as large as, and longer than, half the foot of the man standing beside them. I am not a biologist, but common knowledge would classify them as medium-sized field rats as distinct from house mice. They live in holes on the humous-rich banks of lakes, streams and rivers.
Humans have less natural instincts than the animals, especially the wild ones. They sense preimminent natural disasters to their homes in advance, dangers such as increase in populations of their predators, floods, soil creep and earthquakes. But how can we humans say what dangers lie ahead just by looking at the mass migration of rats. We are less instinctive, if proud to call ourselves intelligent.
Just think of the possibilities, and watch out. Take care of yourselves, friends.