text: Taft overrun with mice
  
  The central valley town of Taft is battling a massive infestation of mice that began on Sunday, and has been worsening in spite of efforts to trap and poison the rodents. According to residents, mice are running thick in the streets and seem to be unafraid of people or dogs. They enter homes and commercial buildings through any available opening. Homeowners have been kept busy searching their exterior walls for access points. The mice are active mainly at night but are quite noticeable in the daytime also. Annie Vishay awoke in the middle of the night to find two mice scurrying across her bedspread. Townspeople have discovered mice in their linen closets, clothing drawers and beds. Of course the rodents are also routinely detected in kitchens and pantries.
  
  Dr. Judith Manishevsky, field biologist at Cal State Bakersfield, estimates the average density of mice in the fields north and east of Taft at seventeen mice per square yard, or about eighty-two thousand mice per acre. Several species of Hawks have been seen feasting on the mice in the area. Farmers have also noticed increasing numbers of barn owls and ravens, but no cats. Some locals have been shooting the predatory birds, fearing that they are apt to do more harm than good. Many farmers have set zinc phosphate traps but have been unable to control the hordes of mice. Jim Pfeffer of Taft reports that his barley and alfalfa crops are total losses. He sets several dozen traps each night, but by the next morning, the traps are so full of dead mice that no more mice could possibly gain access to the poison. Several corpses of predatory birds have been found, apparently dead from eating poisoned mice.
  
  Dr. Carmine Petrucci, population biologist at Cal State Sacramento, notes that such population explosions of mice in the valley are not uncommon, especially in the area around Buena Vista Lake near Taft. "However, the numbers are generally not of the magnitude we are seeing at this time," he said. "The unusually wet winter and warm spring have resulted in abundant vegetation on which the mice are able to feed. As they use up the available food, the mice migrate until they find new forage." Indeed, farmers in the area have reported them entering granaries and consuming or fouling large quantities of feed and seed grains.
  
  The stench of mice, living and dead, as well as their excrement, is said to be overpowering, and many residents of Taft have taken to wearing cloth masks, a strategy that is not very effective, say the locals. Jamie Gunderson, age 12, a youngster with a keen business sense, has been buying up all the aerosol deodorant he can find in Taft stores and going from door to door selling the cans at a handsome profit.
  
  Petrucci reports that the mouse explosion (mainly the common house mouse Mus musculus) began at Buena Vista Lake in February. The mice began migrating from the lake when available food in the area ran out. The rodents then migrated southwest in the general direction of Taft. Bands of mice have also been seen moving north and east and are expected to reach Bakersfield by Friday. Engineers at the Department of Water Resources contacted by The Californian have expressed alarm at the potential for damage to the California Aqueduct.
  
  Public Health authorities have issued an alert to all communities in the area, advising residents to seal up all openings greater than a half-inch wide. However, Petrucci points out that such precautionary measures may be fruitless as the mice are quite capable of gnawing through wooden walls."
  
  Two people were killed late last night when their SUV skidded on Interstate 5, forty miles south of Bakersfield. The car hit the center divider and overturned, crushing the occupants. The fatalities were a mother, 44, and daughter, 23, returning to Bakersfield from an overnight stay in Los Angeles. Names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Witnesses reported that the highway was slick from the crushed bodies of mice that had been run over. The California Highway Patrol has posted signs limiting the speed on I-5 to 25 mph from Buena Vista Lake to Highway 58.
  
  Biologist Petrucci notes that, although house mice are primarily vegetarians, when food is in short supply, they will eat anything, plant or animal. Mice that are killed on a freeway attract others who then come out at night to feed on the bodies of the dead ones. This, of course, increases the probability that more mice will be crushed by automobiles.
  
  Petrucci believes that the mouse boom is probably not a direct result of the recent decimation of domestic and feral cats by the FHF virus, although their absence has probably aggravated the problem. Cats are only one of several environmental factors that tend to keep mouse populations in check. According to Petrucci, coyotes, in years past, also tended to help control such mouse explosions, but sheep farmers have long since killed off these animals."