Fed up with traditional methods that have failed to contain a plague of rats wreaking havoc in local rice fields, an Indonesian city is to take on the pests with the most dangerous predator of all: mother nature.
Three hundred two-metre pythons and five pairs of owls will be released into fields in Sleman regency, central Java, next week, according to government officials in Yogyakarta.
”The rats are causing such problems we don’t know what else to do,” said Ahmad Yulianto, of the local agriculture and forestry office.
”There are hundreds of thousands of them destroying rice fields in Sleman. The next harvest will be well down on usual. This is our way to restore the balance of nature so we can all live in harmony.”
The scheme follows a pilot project last year initiated by the local governor and one of Indonesia’s last active royal sultans, Hamengkubuwono X. ”He ordered the release of 59 snakes and they proved successful,” Yulianto said. ”As the problem is worse this year, we’ve decided to significantly increase the number of snakes released.”
Officials hope there will be such a feast for the snakes and owls that they will stay in the infested neighbourhoods until the food supply dries up.
Officials in Yogyakarta, home to Borobudur, one of the world’s largest Buddhist monuments, refused to say where they got the snakes, merely saying they are ”from across Java”.
”Socialisation” programmes have been run in the affected areas, Yulianto said, to prepare residents for the pythons.
”They are not poisonous, so even people who do not like snakes have nothing to fear,” he said.
”In fact, the snakes look rather attractive so our biggest concern is that people will hunt them for their meat and skin. I hope that won’t happen until after the rats have been dealt with.” – Guardian Unlimited Â