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> 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!
The dose makes the poison. Warfarin is prescribed as a blood thinner for humans.
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.
Saying "no relation" is almost stretching it a bit. I kinda give hats off to someone for the slipup. It's not the same legal entity but there's a continuous ideological (and even personal) connection going all the way back.
The way I see it ... Peter Lougheed through Getty and (arguably Stelmach era) was a bit of a brief interruption. His urban, pragmatic PCs pushed the older rural, evangelical Socreds out of power in the 70s.. but that populist movement just went briefly into a (vaguely) outsider status, organized through Alberta Report, etc got into Klein's cabinet, found a national voice in Preston Manning's Reform Party, and returned provincially via the Wildrose Party, and finally triumphally recaptured the province under the banner of the UCP
So not legally the same part, but frankly just really the same minus all the weird fixation on currencies, banks, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (... so far!)
All of this off topic from rats. (Maybe?)
I live in Alberta. No rats here. Also the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.
Maybe I’m just lucky but I’ve lived in Ontario (in cities and the country) and have never seen a rat here. I know they exist but it’s not like we’re inundated by them. Maybe some specific businesses have problems with them, but it’s not something you see every day.
I also lived in Montreal and did see them there sometimes. This was always early morning when I was out running - did not see them in Toronto, Ottawa, etc under similar conditions.
Edit based on reading some other comments: I have seen lots of coyotes and foxes so maybe that explains fewer rats. I know Montreal has coyotes but I’ve never seen them there and where I was there were also squirrels everywhere suggesting fewer predators.
I care about the Lyme more than the rats tbh. That is way more likely to fuck you up long term than anything a rat will bring in this day and age. We aren’t getting the black plague anymore.
Albertan here too. Can confirm no rats
My friend got Lyme disease from a tick though so I can't agree with that part
> the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.
this is out of date information unfortunately. With warming climate, the black-legged tick has spread into Alberta and samples have been found with the Lyme disease bacterium.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/tick-lyme-diseas...
They likely spread rocky mountain fever instead, if they are dog ticks like we have in Colorado.
They don’t spread Lyme yet
From Alberta, never saw a rat in my life until visiting BC...
Gophers everywhere though.
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
I learned all about this from Joe Pera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM
See also this exploration from Strange Aeons: https://youtu.be/vMOMa-4D1yQ?si=t1uxfY1pEDh2a44Y
One of the bonus features of the movie Ratatouille has a short video-game sequence about it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-2xD9ShhMZU
There was a Joe Pera episode where they made a musical about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM.
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=wcp1BfPUeOc
The 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.
>Uruk-hai, orcs, or Balrogs
Aren't they native?
So, even impossible things can be made possible if there's enough determination and political will.
eliminate malaria from the continental US. Check.
eliminate smallpox. Check.
eliminate measles. Own goal.
Is it your position that private pest control could not achieve the same or better result for at most the same cost?
Are you an economic calculation problem denier?
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...
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?
New York claims a small victory in 'forever war on rats' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42918425 - Feb 2025 (204 comments)
Cats are no match for New York City's rats (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38333054 - Nov 2023 (77 comments)
How rats became an inescapable part of city living - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19413214 - Mar 2019 (52 comments)
The Case for Leaving City Rats Alone (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19207172 - Feb 2019 (14 comments)
Drones Help Rid Galapagos Island of Invasive Rats - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19078518 - Feb 2019 (58 comments)
New Zealand’s War on Rats (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891549 - April 2018 (34 comments)
New Zealand’s War on Rats Could Change the World - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730337 - Nov 2017 (3 comments)
Lots of rodents in Alberta. The neighbourhood cats keep the mice and hantavirus down. Aircraft are often infested with mice. We need more bullsnakes.
> The neighbourhood cats keep the mice and hantavirus down. Aircraft are often infested with mice
They aren't doing a good job of keeping them "down" if they're on planes.
Time to flip the Samuel Jackson quote upside down, we need more mf'in snakes on the mf'in plane!
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.
Around here the coyotes eat mice. I'll see a golf ball size blob of crushed bones and fur on the driveway now and then.
A few years ago, a coyote mom with her 5 pups set up shop on my front lawn. She'd keep a weather eye on me, and me on her, and we got along fine. Over the summer, the number of pups dwindled. I saw a severed head of one a ways away, I think it was done by an eagle. I think only 2 survived the summer.
I sometimes see 6 eagles at a time circling overhead. One flew by so close I could have touched its wingtip. Wow!
A bobcat lives nearby. I see his tracks in the snow, and saw him a couple times.
I live well within the Seattle metropolitan area. Isn't it amazing?
This inevitably brings us to the story of the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone, and how they eat the deer which brings back a whole new slew of changes.
There are tons of coyotes in Alberta, to the point where my very urban university has had to put up "Be Coyote Smart" signs since they keep showing up on campus. Nobody that I'm aware of is trying to eradicate coyotes here either, aside from the occasional farmer during calving season.
Coyote populations are climbing, not shrinking.
fox eat rats too
Farmers and pet-owners might prefer the rats.
https://www.alberta.ca/albertas-rat-control-program
Relevant government website for those curious
We have online reporting for rat sightings that they take action on
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.
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".
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.
"Alberta has no rats" is a bit of a simplification, as the linked article goes into in depth. They do find rat investations (typically) in the border zones, and some sneak through, both wild and domesticated. Due to ongoing management though the statement is true in broad strokes. We have lots of mice and all sorts of ground squirrels (including a ridiculously awesome "museum") but thankfully very few rats.
there's no rats but there has been an uptick in voles and other rodents
also Alberta, Canada mentioned
Albertan here. Never seen a rat outside of a research lab. We do have mice though.
I wonder if people could do bed bugs? Those are rather annoying.
The whole public buy-in is very much what is going on in Queensland, Australia right now that is attempting to eradicate fire ants. Even the funding fight to get the Commonwealth and neighbouring states to pitch in, as they have the potential to become endemic to the whole continent.
We also have a lot of "sovereign citizen" people pushing misinformation about the safety of the various chemicals used, attempting to deny inspectors onto properties, and general complaints about helicopter/drone dispersal in inaccessible areas and large farms/properties.
... ... all i learned is that eventually Alberta will have rats, and that nowhere else can ever replicate their success. Thank you, next
> Author: Deena Mousa
clearly an article sponsored by Big Mouse
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.