

On the front lines of humanity’s high-tech war on rats - Petiver
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/13/8592817/rat-patrol-new-york-alberta-canada-south-georgia-eradication

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barrydahlberg
I live in New Zealand and spend some time in our back country deer stalking,
trout fishing and exploring.

NZ uses about 80% of the worlds supply of 1080 poison[1] and our next trip is
into one of the areas where it is dropped every few years. 1080 is a horrible
thing and I hate what we do with it. It kills animals it wasn't meant for, it
makes game unsafe to eat and it's not a pleasant way to go. However I love NZ
because of what nature has given us here, and unfortunately the poison is
currently the best tool we have to protect the birds that we have left.
Trapping and hunting are useful tools but we have so much remote, inaccessible
wilderness that it is not feasible on its own.

I would love to see more innovation in tools to control the rats, the possums,
the stoats and other small mammals that NZ grew up without and doesn't know
how to handle. I'm hoping that new technology coming from start ups like we
have here will bring new ideas and techniques. A major challenge will be
taking those ideas and adapting them to work reliably in remote and harsh
conditions.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080_usage_in_New_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080_usage_in_New_Zealand)

~~~
mapt
It makes a hell of a lot of sense to use these things in a credible, short-
term 100% extermination drive, supplemented by other methods including
hunting. We've extirpated animals like this before, like the wolves of North
America.

But... it's a mammalian toxin. Humans are mammals. I don't understand why you
would want to reintroduce it into your home every year as some kind of
maintenance activity.

~~~
leohutson
The bait drops are restricted to within park boundaries. Within those bounds
there should be no mammals, save for humans who know better than to eat bait
pellets, and perhaps the occasional muzzled dog ( with a permit ). There is a
by-kill of native animals, but that pales in comparison to the amount that
would be killed by unchecked predator growth. No human has been killed or
harmed by DOC 1080 drops.

[http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/saving-our-
environment/nativ...](http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/saving-our-
environment/native-plants-and-animals-/protecting-native-
forests-1080/1080-frequently-ask)

The main opponents to 1080 are hunters, nimbies and people that believe in
chem-trails and threaten to poison milk formula.

Hunters I can empathize with to some degree, but in the end, they have a
vested interest in preserving the populations of feral animals, not in the
elimination of them.

~~~
barrydahlberg
Basically accurate here but "hunters" does cover a pretty diverse group of
people with many different motivations. They include many who care very deeply
about conservation and unfortunately also those who threaten to poison milk
formula. I don't think you'll find many on either side that have any love for
rats.

As said above, 1080 is the best choice we have but we should (and do) keep
looking for better alternatives. It would be nice if we didn't have to greet
visitors to our national parks with this all the time:

[http://www.tongarirorivermotel.co.nz/wp-
content/gallery/misc...](http://www.tongarirorivermotel.co.nz/wp-
content/gallery/misc-2011/iclose-up-of-1080-sign.jpg)

------
pkfrank
This was an unexpectedly fascinating read. This blew my mind:

> Rats are responsible for about half of all bird and reptile extinctions on
> islands, according to Gregg Howald of the group Island Conservation.

I live in the LES of NYC, and will routinely see 50+ rats in a 10 block span.
They have massive burrows through a local park, with ample opportunity to live
and breed, and a constant supply of trash and food (sometimes left "for the
birds.")

One small benefit is that they prove a consistent supply of food for the local
park's hawks, which can regularly be seen feasting on them.

Here's a cool video of hunting dogs attacking a rat burrow:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxQksEF2uso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxQksEF2uso)

~~~
stinos
_This blew my mind_

not from this article but from a documentary I once saw, and equally if not
more mindblowing, it is estimated that about 20% of the entire world food
supply goes to rats

~~~
fudged71
So their eradication could be a solution to the food crisis? Interesting
thought.

~~~
nico_h
Humankind produces enough food for humankind, but due to various reasons
entirely human, some of it is wasted or destroyed (to keep price up) rather
than distributed to those in need.

[http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/13/un-one-third-of-food-
pro...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/13/un-one-third-of-food-produced-for-
human-consumption-is-uneaten/)

------
rpcope1
On a related note, brown rats make excellent pets, just so long as you don't
let them breed and have your own population problems. I guess it's no surprise
they're as prolific as they are, when they're probably the smartest small
mammal out there and incredibly resilient to just about everything at that. My
own rats answer to names and can perform simple tricks, sort of miles ahead
intellectually than any other animal their size. They're also very loving
animals, once they get to know you.

~~~
aerique
And breed they can! If a male rat as much as touches a female rat -even
through the bars of a cage- you can consider the female impregnated.

But, yeah, they're awesome pets.

------
beloch
I grew up in Alberta and can recall only the occasional bit of anti-rat
propaganda. The province's status as a rat-free zone is something most natives
of the province view as a curious, obscure fact. Most take it for granted. I
can remember once viewing the rat-patrol as a vanity project, thinking that
mice (which the province does have) were the same, only smaller. We also have
gophers (Richardson’s ground squirrel), which are larger than rats and truly
industrious tunnellers. I once thought that the province was kept rat-free
with great ease and only as a minor boon for tourism, or some such nonsense.
The only time I've seen rats in Alberta was in a zoology course where we
conducted some basic experiments on them. Lab rats are white and well-looked
after, almost like pets. They bear almost no resemblance to wild norwegian
browns.

Then I travelled abroad and encountered real rats. They're dirty, disgusting,
and bold. Alberta's gophers, outside of populated areas, are as bold as rats.
They'll chew their way inside your pack to get at your lunch, and I've even
had my lunch stolen from my hand because I unwittingly held a sandwich near
the ground without paying attention to what was creeping up behind me! Gophers
are a blight on farmers and horses can supposedly break their legs in their
holes, although I suspect this is a rare occurence. However, they aren't
vectors for disease and, in spite of all the damage they cause, don't make
your skin crawl the way rats do. Some people (tourists usually) deliberately
feed gophers. Japan even had a brief gopher craze where they bought them as
pets (it's illegal to export pests, so nobody here was able to cash in on that
craze). Gophers are also substantially shier in populated areas and generally
live outside in parks, not within homes.

Reading this article has reinforced my support for the rat-patrol. They're
doing important work. I think I'll send them a thank-you.

------
pavel_lishin
This is incredible.

> * The Norway rat has a three-week gestation period and can produce five
> litters a year, each with four to eight offspring. In as few as three
> months, those rats can produce litters of their own. In theory, a single
> pair is capable of giving rise to thousands of progeny in under a year.*

> _But then came the sealers, and they brought the rats, which devoured the
> birds: eating eggs, chicks, and even fully grown birds, Martin said,
> grabbing their necks and devouring their brains while still alive._

I can't even imagine seeing that.

------
ChuckMcM
I had not realized that there was anywhere in North America that was "rat
free". Would love to make Sunnyvale rat free but with all the old orchards and
what not I doubt that is feasible.

~~~
screwedup
Anecdotally I've been told that Alberta has some rats, they just keep on
telling outsiders that they don't.

~~~
diego_moita
I live in Edmonton, Alberta. In the last 10 years the only rats I've seen are
the ones used in the neuroscience labs at the University of Alberta.

In truth, my house got a infestation of the smaller deer mouse [1], 2 years
ago. But they are indigenous to Alberta and much smaller and easier to catch
than the brown rat. It was quite easy to get rid of them, a cleaning in the
garage and some traps did it.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peromyscus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peromyscus)

------
tehchromic
And the irony is that it's humans who are directly responsible for the rat
scourge.

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hyperion2010
Genetically engineer them so that they don't act as disease vectors (those
ones will out-compete the unmodified strains) and stick in a set of genes that
allows use to use a very specific poison that will only kill the rats and
nothing else. Put the poison in or near the food sources we don't want them to
get in to and then let them be our little garbage men for the rest of time.

------
mentos
Would it be possible to do what they've done with mosquitoes and engineer male
rats that will mate with females but not create viable offspring?

------
wtbob
I'm unclear why _humanity_ (i.e., the quality of being humane) would be at war
with rats, as it's kinda like multiplication being at war with apples,
although I can see why _mankind_ (i.e., human beings) would.

~~~
kbart
Because it's mankind's fault that the rat population is booming and invading
places they naturally are not supposed to be, killing nearly all native
species along the way. Not to mention carrying diseases one of which once
happened to kill more than half of total Europe's population.. This article
does a pretty good job explaining that, try reading it.

