CALGARY The city of Medicine Hat, Alta., has opened a new front in the war against a nest of rats that took hold of the border-towns landfill last month.

In a bid to recapture the provinces status as one of the few rat-free regions on Earth, the city launched Operation Haystack: A large roll of hay was baited with poison and placed downhill from the landfill. Gnawing signs near the stack, which are near-perfect homes for rats, indicated there had been activity, said Brandy Calvert, spokesperson for Medicine Hat. So far, although the battle has not yet been won, she said the city remained hopeful the rat population was dwindling.

The grand total is 111 [dead carcasses found] at the landfill. We have 18 in the county and in the city weve had 19, she said.

Promisingly, all of the rats found outside the landfill have been singletons, indicating no breeding pairs had established themselves.

We got them before they went anywhere else, she said.

City workers followed a trail of reports of rat sightings to the landfill in August. Since then, theyve left poisoned food and water in the hopes the population would die.

City staff have stopped finding rat bodies in the landfill a sharp improvement from several weeks ago when the bait would routinely kill as many as nine rats per day.

Not as much bait is being taken, were not finding as many bodies, she said.

Were not seeing as much evidence of activity. We have had many locations throughout the city checked, the city facilities have all been checked and theres been no sign of activity.

At the initiatives peak, as many as 60 people left poisoned bait or inspected nearby residences for signs of the vermin. Ten of those specialists kept a near round-the-clock vigil full time. The team has also been using cameras to spot the rats.

View post:

Alberta’s rat battle: Medicine Hat in poison war with nest of rodents