Bamboo plants only flower (producing seeds) every 50+ years (some as long as 120!). Explains why bamboo isn't a common houseplant. Seeds are rare and expensive-- a delicacy, you might say . . . especially if you're a rat! This year was the special year for bamboo plants in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area of Bangladesh. They released their huge seeds, which the rats devour. The seeds are especially dense in calories, and very high in protein. Just what rats need to live longer, healthier, and more reproductively-productive lives! The rat population exploded, and it's a major problem for the people of the area. Rats eat all their food as fast as they can grow it, and have gobbled up any emergency food stores.
Food aid there is tricky. The BBC had a great article on it. I've already mentioned the discrimination and rumored silent genocide against the indigenous people of the Hill Tracts. Recently an aid worker was killed by a Bengali man. He was upset because there were more indigenous people than Bengalis on the list for food handouts. But the indigenous tribes make up the majority of the population in the area, and they also represent the lowest socioeconomic classes, so of course they dominate the list!
Food is politics. And even the rats don't share.
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Your Aunt Cathy had two pet white mice at SUNY Brockport. She brought them home on break. One died and we let the other one go in the field on Thurber Road in Caton. It came back and we took it to the field again.
ReplyDeleteCan we ship the rats to the bad people in Iraq and Afghanistan? Drop them in the artic/antarica? Where's the pied piper when you need one?
I love your "Blogger" spot. I share it with the people at work. Love ya, Aunt Jean