Alberta’s ‘rat patrol’ ramps up operations as vermin makes inroads in province

Alberta’s formidable geography has stymied the infiltration of the vermin into the province – until now. Photograph: Dave Chidley/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenAlberta’s formidable geography has stymied the infiltration of the vermin into the province – until now.

Photograph: Dave Chidley/AFP/Getty ImagesCanadaAlberta’s ‘rat patrol’ ramps up operations as vermin makes inroads in province‘Rat-free’ Canadian province recently took a verminous hit when a dead rodent turned up in town of Bowden.

Há mais de sete décadas, os moradores de Alberta compartilham um fato em comum com a Antártica e o alto Ártico: todas as regiões são oficialmente livres de ratos.

But on Thursday the Canadian province’s reputation as a firewall against rodent infestation took a hit when the town of Bowden announced the discovery of a dead rat and called on the province’s “rat patrol” to investigate.

Funcionários em Bowden não disseram onde na cidade o rato foi encontrado.

Read moreBut as global temperatures increase, rat numbers have surged in major cities. Over the past decade, rats increased by 390% in Washington DC, 300% in San Francisco and 162% in New York, according to researchers, who analysed public sightings and infestation reports.

Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is facing a “perfect rat storm”, with numbers up 186% in the last 10 years.

Unlike other regions in the world that have been overrun by the wily and adaptable urban mammals, Alberta has actively fought rats from entering at all.

Ele cita tanto a geografia única da província, com cadeias montanhosas e floresta boreal envolvendo a maior parte de Alberta, quanto o fato de que a ratazana da Noruega – “uma das criaturas mais destrutivas conhecidas pelo homem”, afirma a província – não pode sobreviver em vastas áreas naturais e não pode hibernar em campos cultivados.

The very lack of the humans and their structures that rats need to survive has given the province a chance to ward off infestation.

In the 1950s, suspecting rats might try to enter from the east by way of neighbouring Saskatchewan, Alberta officials created a “rat control zone” – a strip of land measuring 373 miles by 18 miles (600km by 30km) – to monitor incursions that ranges from Cold Lake in the north to the Montana border in the south.

In addition, from June 1952 to July 1953, 140,000lb of 73% arsenic trioxide powder was used to treat 8,000 buildings on 2,700 farms to slow the spread of rats.

A província também alterou a Lei de Pragas Agrícolas da Alberta em 1950, obrigando “every person and municipality” a destruir ratos que encontrasse; produziu cartazes reminiscentes de um esforço de guerra nacional; e sediou um programa de rádio, Call of the Land, para educar os residentes.

Today, there are dedicated telephone lines and an email address to report rats.

But while the rat patrol receives hundreds of calls each year, it says the vast majority are not rats but muskrats, voles and field mice.

Ainda assim, admite que há exceções. “O status livre de ratos da Alberta significa que não há população residente de ratos e eles não são permitidos para se estabelecerem.