A massive rat infestation is wreaking havoc on almond orchards across California’s San Joaquin Valley, with crop losses and infrastructure damage now estimated to exceed $300 million, according to a new report from the Almond Board of California.
Growers from Merced to Kern counties reported unprecedented destruction as roof rats chew through irrigation lines, strip bark from branches and feast on ripening nuts.
“We live in an infinite sea of rats,” Niamh Quinn, a University of California Cooperative Extension wildlife adviser, told the Fresno Bee. “They are everywhere.”…