UN to breed owls to combat rat scourge in Laos

By MICHAEL CASEY,AP Environmental Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand – When the rats descended in swarms and wiped out an entire season's rice harvest, hungry Lao villagers supplemented their diets by hunting barn owls, snakes and other wild animals.

But now, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization plans to persuade villagers that protecting the pale-faced owls is a much better way to ensure their food supply. The owls are natural predators of rats, and one can eat a dozen rodents in a day.

After traps failed and pesticides offered mixed results, the U.N. decided to breed the birds to end the rat scourge and educate villagers about their vital role in the ecosystem.

"Some people can joke about this, but it is a very good bird and can do a lot of good work," said Serge Verniau, the country representative in Laos for the U.N. agency, known by its acronym FAO.

"Some villagers eat the barn owls," he continued. "If they know the barn owl could be their ally to fight against the rodents, we are convinced they will change."

Verniau said the rodent outbreak first hit the farming communities last year after flowering bamboo _ which bloom every 50 years _ provided the rats with a plentiful food source. The rats wiped out much of the November harvest of rice, cassava and sesame, leaving families with little to eat in a country where hunger is already widespread. The rodents have destroyed crops in seven provinces in the country's north.

The World Food Program has stepped in, distributing 5,500 tons (5,000 metric tons ) of rice to affected communities. It estimates that the outbreak has left 130,000 people short of food in a country of more than 6 million people.

"People in some villages have lost everything. All their crops were destroyed last year. That is why there is an urgency for food assistance," Verniau said.

Elisabeth Faure, the food program's acting country director in Laos, said that the rat infestation is the sort of disaster _ along with floods _ that sends vulnerable families over the edge. Laos is one of the poorest countries in Asia, with one of two children under 5 in rural areas chronically malnourished and two-thirds of the population routinely facing food shortages, she said.

"When I went up to the north, farmers were telling stories of their rice huts shaking and a swarm of rats eating everything around them. It was like a sea of rats," Faure said. "Many people had lost absolutely everything. It is a big shock on a top of a bad situation."

In the government-run Vientiane Times, Lao Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Onchanh Thammavong acknowledged the outbreak Thursday and welcomed the international food assistance. She did not comment on the plan to use owls to address the problem, and another Lao official did not respond to a request for an interview.

Biologists acknowledge that meddling with ecosystems carries risks, especially when new species are introduced. The U.N.'s plan would appear to be less risky, though, because the barn owl is an established predator.