‘Hairy panic’ eats up Australian town

The fast-growing Panicum Effusum weed, more commonly known as ‘hairy panic, ‘ has been drifting into the town for days.

About 20 residences on a new development have been hit the hardest with the grass blowing over from neighbouring fields. Outbreaks of the weed take place across the country every year but Wangaratta has been hit bad this year due to drier than average conditions.

They suspect it’s coming from a nearby paddock that a farmer has failed to maintain.

On Friday morning street sweepers would “attempt to clean up the mess”, he said.

“It is frustrating. You know that you’ve got a good couple of hours work ahead of you and that’s always sort of displeasing”, exhausted resident Jason Perna told a local news channel.

The spokesman said hairy panic would go wherever the wind blows, and clarified again that it was not something that the council “can stop from happening”.

Rather, the prickly Russian thistle, or simply “tumbleweed”, originated in Eurasia, and was first spotted in South Dakota in 1880.

The weed, which is called “hairy” because of the long hairs along the edges of their leaves, can cause a potentially fatal condition called “yellow big head” in sheep if eaten in large quantities.