Alberta has discovered an infestation of 164 rats in a stack of straw bales near Sibbald, Alta.
The rats were found during a spring inspection of Alberta’s so-called rat control zone, a 30 kilometre area west of its border with Saskatchewan.
Vaughn Christensen, manager of the Inspection Services, which looks after pest control in Alberta’s Special Areas, said his staff discovered the rats living in 90 round straw bales next to a stack of 86 square greenfeed bales.
“The green feed was the feed source and the straw was the housing,” Christensen said.
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Eighteen government staff and pest control officers from adjoining municipalities and counties arrived May 30 to kill the rats.
Christensen said control officers used a tractor to shake the rodents out of the bales.
“As you lift the bales with the tractor, the rats hide underneath them and they were shot with a shotgun. We know we got all of them. We had the rats surrounded and no rats escaped.”
Christensen said all the greenfeed bales and 27 straw bales had to be destroyed because they were contaminated by the rats.
After officials killed the rats, they found a second smaller infestation 10 km west in another bale stack. Those rats were not shot, but the area was baited with rat poison.
“We feel we can control that smaller infestation with the bait and not have to move the bales.”
Since 1950 Alberta Agriculture has supervised the co-ordination of a rural-based Norway rat control program to keep the province rat free. Rat specialists conduct 7,500 inspections each spring and fall in the 600-km-long rat control zone. The last infestation was discovered in 2001.
“The producers out there (in the rat control zone) are extremely vigilant,” Christensen said.
“They bait haystacks when they put them up in the fall. They pay particular attention for sightings.”
Most sightings come from other parts of the province where people think they may have spotted a rat. Some complaints are about escaped or released pet rats, or rats that may have come into the province by train, plane or truck.
In the past year there have been two confirmed Norway rat sightings in Drayton Valley, which were believed to be pets, one in Leduc near Edmonton’s airport, one in Innisfail and one in Calgary that came in by truck from Vancouver.
The rest were either muskrats or northern pocket gophers mistaken for rats.
“Generally everybody in Alberta knows we’re rat free and we work hard to stay that way.”
Christensen said key to rat survival is a place to live, a good food source and water. With the right combination, a pair of rats can produce 15,000 offspring within three years.
