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Prairie Dog Plague Threatens Chinese Grasslands |
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| CHINA: June 4, 2007 | ||
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BEIJING - A plague of prairie dogs is threatening more than 70,000 sq km (27,000 sq miles) of grasslands in northern China, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.
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The government of the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia planned to clear the burrowing rodents from 1,300 sq km of land this year and had already spent 2 million yuan (US$261,500) on the problem, the report added. "Although the area affected by the plague has fallen, it is still a serious problem," it said. China is trying to combat severe desertification in Inner Mongolia, caused by years of drought and over-farming and the reason for sandstorms whose effects can be felt as far away as Japan. China's far western region of Xinjiang meanwhile is dealing with marauding rats, whose population has exploded due to an unseasonably warm winter, state media said last month. (US$1=7.647 Yuan)
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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