Thirst was their undoing.
A rat infestation in the dry and dusty regional landfill near Medicine Hat earlier this year has been controlled through concerted — and moist — baiting efforts.
“The baiting was what did it, really,” said Alberta rat and pest specialist Phil Merrill.
“We had a water bait, and in Medicine Hat it gets pretty dry, and at the dump it’s really dry because there’s no vegetation around, so we know once they started taking the water bait fairly regularly, we knew we had them over a barrel.”
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The rat control team excavated a large area of the landfill on Sept. 25, revealing the former home of at least 150 rats that has now been laid waste.
Merrill said several long-dead rats were found in the fresh dig and there has been no rat activity reported or recorded on trail cams for about two weeks.
“I predict that we’ll find one or two singles that haven’t been caught or haven’t been discovered either in the city or the county, as a follow up or as a result of that infestation,” said Merrill.
In the final tally, 147 rats were killed and he thinks at least that many more died and weren’t found by the rat patrol.
The rat infestation at the landfill, located in the County of Cypress, was discovered in early August. It generated widespread interest largely because of the province’s claim to be rat-free.
Ed Jollymore, Medicine Hat’s manager of solid waste, said at the time that the rats were initially spotted in a seldom-disturbed area of the dump littered with industrial waste.
A battle ensued to obliterate the rats and prevent their spread into the city and surrounding rural area. Their point of origin remains a mystery.
Jollymore said Oct. 1 that he thinks control tactics were effective and there have been no sightings since the end of August.
“We’re feeling that this is almost the textbook response of keeping the rats comfortable, baiting them and keeping lots of bait there and killing them off.”
Merrill said public interest in the rat infestation was encouraging for those dedicated to keeping the province free of the rodents. However, the event wasn’t particularly unusual.
“It’s not abnormal to find that many. It’s just that it was close to Medicine Hat, which was alarming because it was right near the city, and it was in a dump, and dumps are harder to deal with than farmyards.”
Merrill said he is relieved that the outbreak appears to be over, although it will continue to be monitored.
Jollymore echoed Merrill’s assurance that monitoring will continue.
“I’m feeling really good about the progress we’ve been making, but we’re not quite ready to do our happy dance yet.”
Merrill and others on his team are now doing their usual late fall patrol of Saskatchewan border areas to ensure no rats make winter homes in Alberta farmyards, granaries and bale stacks.
About half of Saskatchewan’s rural municipalities are rat free, but the Alberta patrol has to be vigilant, he said.
He advised farmers near the border to put bait in their feed stacks and beneath wooden granaries to forestall any rat habitation. Effective bait is readily available in farm supply and hardware stores. There are some restrictions on single dose anticoagulants, which must be put in a bait box, said Merrill.
The landfill incident heightened Albertans’ awareness of the fight against rats, and Merrill said he welcomes calls from anyone who thinks they’ve seen one, even if most turn out to involve some other animal.
“It doesn’t take long to identify it, and we enjoy the calls,” he said.
As a general guide, rats are not typically seen in daylight.
“They know how to hide from man. They’ve been doing it for centuries and they know how to stay out of sight.”
