How Alberta Eradicated Rats

virgil_disgr4ce

The Freakonomics podcast did a series on rats and their relationship to cities and humans and talked about Alberta's approach—it was really fascinating, I'd recommend it: https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/sympathy-for-the-rat

Hugsbox

Every so often I'll mention online that Alberta has no rats, and inevitably there will be an American responding in absolute disbelief saying I'm full of shit. I may not live in Alberta, but luckily rats aren't really a thing in my neck of the woods. Travel an hour down the highway and it's a different story. Also, as an aside, people often don't believe me when I say I've never seen a cockroach before in my life. Not a one. I've seen pictures of em, and I'm pretty sure if I saw one of those things irl I would absolutely shit myself.

jp_sc

One of the bonus features of the movie Ratatouille has a short video-game sequence about it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-2xD9ShhMZU

staplung

Tom Scott did a video a few years ago about New Zealand's attempt to eliminate rats by 2050. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcp1BfPUeOc The program is actually called "Predator Free 2050" and also aims to eliminate possums and stoats. No mention is made of Uruk-hai, orcs, or Balrogs.

mig39

I live in Alberta. No rats here. Also the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.

yawnxyz

> Author: Deena Mousa clearly an article sponsored by Big Mouse

stackedinserter

So, even impossible things can be made possible if there's enough determination and political will.

bluefirebrand

https://www.alberta.ca/albertas-rat-control-program Relevant government website for those curious We have online reporting for rat sightings that they take action on

mekdoonggi

I wonder if we stopped trying to eradicate coyotes we might have an easier time with rats. I personally would rather see a coyote than a rat.

tweaktastic

Great read. I didn't know how exactly the rats were eradicated from Alberta something I have just heard and taken for granted. Reading the article provided a great overview of how much effort it really took to do it. I would like to mention that, even though Alberta is rat free, we still have mice that can make your life misreble if they somehow enter your house/office.

dan353hehe

> But it was easy to prove warfarin was safe: a pest control officer held a series of local meetings where he ate warfarin-treated rolled oats while discussing rat control. Got to love those live demos. Eating rat poison in front of the audience to prove it is safe!

debo_

Alberta has shown us that proper policy incentives can drive meaningful change. Instead of leaving rats to languish in cellars, they created incentives for them to do meaningful work in the provincial government instead.

johnsutor

There was a Joe Pera episode where they made a musical about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM .

cogman10

Here in Boise Idaho, we are watching the local governments completely fail. We've not had rats here until somewhat recently. The State, County, and cities have all taken a "not our problem" attitude to it and instead of putting in any sort of pest management/eradication programs they've basically just said "good luck everyone".

dang

Related: On the front lines of humanity’s high-tech, global war on rats (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17821534 - Aug 2018 (1 comment) On the front lines of humanity’s high-tech war on rats - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9540096 - May 2015 (32 comments) I thought there had been other threads about this but couldn't find them. Anyone?

swader999

We sure have a lot of gophers though. They are cuter but you should still treat them like rats, no touch or try to play with them. Lots of diseases...

msukkarieh

there's no rats but there has been an uptick in voles and other rodents also Alberta, Canada mentioned

tim333

I wonder if people could do bed bugs? Those are rather annoying.

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1

Lots of rodents in Alberta. The neighbourhood cats keep the mice and hantavirus down. Aircraft are often infested with mice. We need more bullsnakes.

grahamburger

I learned all about this from Joe Pera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM