Wild hamsters in France are turning into cannibals due to corn diet, according to a new research. The hamsters are eating their babies alive and the main culprit is a limited diet of corn, researchers say. In the past, the rodents were fed rich variety of grain, roots, and insects.
Due to changing farming practices that focus on industrially growing more corn, their diet has become limited and imbalanced. Important vitamins in food like B3, or niacin are becoming more scarce as their habitat is "collapsing" due to food industries that focus in growing only specific ingredients. The scarcity is making the hamsters turn to other food sources such as their own off springs, believe experts.
The European wild hamster is considered critically endangered in western Europe, with cannibalism as one of the theories of their decline. In the laboratory tests, the scientists placed one group of mothers on wheat and corn-based diets as well as clover or worms. The second group of mothers were placed on purely corn diet.
According to the Science News, the first sign that something was wrong with the second group was when they were oddly aggressive in their cages, and they didn’t give birth in their nests. One researcher remembers seeing the newly born pups alone while their mothers ran about. Then, the mother hamsters would take their pups, place them together with the piles of corn they had stored in the cage, and start eating them alive.
According to the Eagle Radio, only 5 percent of the offspring of the females fed corn made survived the experiment as the rest were eaten. For the other group fed with a variety of diet, 80 percent of the babies survived. However, when the hamsters were given the vitamin B3 with their corn diets, the aggressive symptoms disappeared and they stopped eating their babies.
"Improperly cooked maize-based diets have been associated with higher rates of homicide, suicide and cannibalism in humans," the researchers say. Gerard Baumgart, a hamster expert, explains that monoculture in agriculture harms biodiversity in shockingly unexpected ways. He concludes that having only corn diet is harmful, and urges farmers and food industries to take concrete action as soon as possible.
