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Comments (109)

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  beloch
  A correction:"One mayor refused to cooperate because he thought the program was a distraction cooked up by the ruling United Conservative Party."The UCP was established in 2017 and has no relation to the Social Credit Party that controlled Alberta's legislature during the time period being spoken of.
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  dan353hehe
  > But it was easy to prove warfarin was safe: a pest control officer held a series of local meetings where he ate warfarin-treated rolled oats while discussing rat control.Got to love those live demos. Eating rat poison in front of the audience to prove it is safe!
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  mig39
  I live in Alberta. No rats here. Also the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.
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  grahamburger
  I learned all about this from Joe Pera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM
• jp_sc
  One of the bonus features of the movie Ratatouille has a short video-game sequence about it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-2xD9ShhMZU
• swader999
  We sure have a lot of gophers though. They are cuter but you should still treat them like rats, no touch or try to play with them. Lots of diseases...
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  staplung
  Tom Scott did a video a few years ago about New Zealand's attempt to eliminate rats by 2050.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcp1BfPUeOcThe program is actually called "Predator Free 2050" and also aims to eliminate possums and stoats. No mention is made of Uruk-hai, orcs, or Balrogs.
• johnsutor
  There was a Joe Pera episode where they made a musical about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM.
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  dang
  Related:On the front lines of humanity’s high-tech, global war on rats (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17821534 - Aug 2018 (1 comment)On the front lines of humanity’s high-tech war on rats - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9540096 - May 2015 (32 comments)I thought there had been other threads about this but couldn't find them. Anyone?
• yawnxyz
  > Author: Deena Mousaclearly an article sponsored by Big Mouse
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  BXLE_1-1-BitIs1
  Lots of rodents in Alberta. The neighbourhood cats keep the mice and hantavirus down. Aircraft are often infested with mice. We need more bullsnakes.
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  mekdoonggi
  I wonder if we stopped trying to eradicate coyotes we might have an easier time with rats. I personally would rather see a coyote than a rat.
• tweaktastic
  Great read. I didn't know how exactly the rats were eradicated from Alberta something I have just heard and taken for granted. Reading the article provided a great overview of how much effort it really took to do it.I would like to mention that, even though Alberta is rat free, we still have mice that can make your life misreble if they somehow enter your house/office.
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  stackedinserter
  So, even impossible things can be made possible if there's enough determination and political will.
• cogman10
  Here in Boise Idaho, we are watching the local governments completely fail. We've not had rats here until somewhat recently. The State, County, and cities have all taken a "not our problem" attitude to it and instead of putting in any sort of pest management/eradication programs they've basically just said "good luck everyone".
• virgil_disgr4ce
  The Freakonomics podcast did a series on rats and their relationship to cities and humans and talked about Alberta's approach—it was really fascinating, I'd recommend it: https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/sympathy-for-the-rat
• anon
  undefined
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  tim333
  I wonder if people could do bed bugs? Those are rather annoying.
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  Hugsbox
  Every so often I'll mention online that Alberta has no rats, and inevitably there will be an American responding in absolute disbelief saying I'm full of shit.I may not live in Alberta, but luckily rats aren't really a thing in my neck of the woods. Travel an hour down the highway and it's a different story.Also, as an aside, people often don't believe me when I say I've never seen a cockroach before in my life. Not a one. I've seen pictures of em, and I'm pretty sure if I saw one of those things irl I would absolutely shit myself.
• msukkarieh
  there's no rats but there has been an uptick in voles and other rodentsalso Alberta, Canada mentioned
• bluefirebrand
  https://www.alberta.ca/albertas-rat-control-programRelevant government website for those curiousWe have online reporting for rat sightings that they take action on
• conartist6
  ... ... all i learned is that eventually Alberta will have rats, and that nowhere else can ever replicate their success. Thank you, next
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  debo_
  Alberta has shown us that proper policy incentives can drive meaningful change. Instead of leaving rats to languish in cellars, they created incentives for them to do meaningful work in the provincial government instead.