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How Alberta Eradicated Rats worksinprogress.co

dang24 minutes ago

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?

tweaktastic2 hours ago

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.

dan353hehean hour ago

> 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!

_whiteCaps_24 minutes ago

The dose makes the poison. Warfarin is prescribed as a blood thinner for humans.

staplung2 hours ago

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.

tokai2 hours ago

>Uruk-hai, orcs, or Balrogs

Aren't they native?

dmbrThnYou2 hours ago

Had they not been so greedy mining for mithril, maybe there wouldn't have been Balrogs. Not sure if that makes Balrogs invasive.

whynotmaybean hour ago

Aren't there only a few of them? Is a few invasive?

How does a balrog reproduce btw?

debo_an hour ago

You see, when two Maia love each other very much...

mig392 hours ago

I live in Alberta. No rats here. Also the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.

sojournercan hour ago

They likely spread rocky mountain fever instead, if they are dog ticks like we have in Colorado.

bluefirebrand2 hours ago

Albertan here too. Can confirm no rats

My friend got Lyme disease from a tick though so I can't agree with that part

cmrdporcupine25 minutes ago

> 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this is out of date information unfortunately.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.

EDIT: downvotes why? cite your sources if you disagree. spreading misinformation about "our ticks here don't spread Lyme disease" is potentially dangerous

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/tick-lyme-diseas...

yawnxyz2 hours ago

> Author: Deena Mousa

clearly an article sponsored by Big Mouse

mekdoonggi2 hours ago

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.

OptionOfTan hour ago

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.

hephaes7us9 minutes ago

Farmers and pet-owners might prefer the rats.

cmrdporcupine24 minutes ago

Coyote populations are climbing, not shrinking.

sidewndr46an hour ago

fox eat rats too

jp_sc3 hours ago

One of the bonus features of the movie Ratatouille has a short video-game sequence about it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-2xD9ShhMZU

johnsutoran hour ago

There was a Joe Pera episode where they made a musical about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LEJSMm1qpM.

cogman10an hour ago

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".

stackedinserter2 hours ago

So, even impossible things can be made possible if there's enough determination and political will.

forlorn_mammothan hour ago

eliminate malaria from the continental US. Check.

eliminate smallpox. Check.

eliminate measles. Own goal.

itintheoryan hour ago

Another own goal - eliminate screw worm from north america...

virgil_disgr4ce3 hours ago

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

bluefirebrand2 hours ago

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

Hugsbox3 hours ago

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.

skeeter20202 hours ago

"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.

https://www.gopherholemuseum.org/

cf100clunk2 hours ago

Canada's shipping ports have had rat infestations for hundreds of years, even up the Great Lakes. DNA studies show that once a local population became established long ago, it defended itself repeatedly from incursions, and carries on. Alberta has no sea ports, so rats hitch rides there on trains, trucks, and in packaging. The scale is much, much smaller, so Alberta is somewhat able to eradicate them.

d_runs_far2 hours ago

I spent the first half of my life in Alberta; had never seen a rat nor a cockroach. I moved further east in the country, cockroaches in my first apartment the first week there... and then discovered rats near the waterfront within the month.

My dad and uncles lived near the southern border as kids, would hunt rats by the train station/grain elevator with a .22 back in the 50's & 60's.

drew870mitchell2 hours ago

Living in a warm climate US city i noticed roaches almost disappeared once off the first floor, i saw only one in five years in a 7th-floor apartment.

sidewndr46an hour ago

isn't it kind of moot? there are plenty of other rodents. They fill the gap left by rats. I'm not really sure eliminating all rodents would be a good idea for the ecosystem.

Hugsbox37 minutes ago

Rats are, to my knowledge, more destructive and spread more disease. Obviously eliminating all rodents would be disastrous for the ecosystem, but rats in particular are an invasive species in North America so eliminating them specifically doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

ipdashcan hour ago

> I've seen pictures of em, and I'm pretty sure if I saw one of those things irl I would absolutely shit myself.

I always thought this was interesting (how many people are super scared of cockroaches). I'm absolutely terrified of bugs, I see cockroaches very rarely, and while I wouldn't pet one... They're not too bad? There's tons of bugs that are way scarier. Spiders, house centipedes, camel crickets. And that's just the stuff that actually exists near me. If I encountered an average Australian insect, good God, I'd run screaming. But cockroaches? Eh

I assume it's because cockroaches are associated with filth, and they tend to occur in large numbers. But as individual bugs, on the surface level they're not too bad. (Not "disagreeing" or anything, just think the different perspectives are neat)

rawgabbitan hour ago

Spiders are beneficial. Please don’t kill them. Cock roaches do spread disease. I buy Combat Source Kill Max Roach Insect Killer Gel with fipronil.

https://www.epa.gov/ipm/cockroaches-and-schools

ipdashc28 minutes ago

I'm aware, I don't kill spiders if I can avoid it. And I know cockroaches are nastier. I just think it's surprising that people are so visually afraid of them, since they're not a very scary-looking bug.

rawgabbita minute ago

[delayed]

FeteCommuniste12 minutes ago

For me it's less fear than an instant "I must kill it / get it out of here" feeling. A big spider or centipede gives me a more intense "creepy crawly" shiver but a cockroach is way higher on the disgust scale for some reason.

SoftTalker2 hours ago

I live in a wooded, fairly rural area and I see cockroaches outside, under leaves, fallen branches, etc. but they don't really come into the house.

mordechai900029 minutes ago

Depending on where you live, those probably aren't the problematic species known as the German cockroach that typically infests human living quarters.

FeteCommuniste10 minutes ago

The big ones (oriental, not German) unfortunately come into my house pretty regularly. Setting out poison helps but hasn't rid of us of all of them.

neonstatic3 hours ago

Re: cockroaches, I haven't seen them until my mid 30s, when I started traveling to warm countries.

tennfownan hour ago

> Also, as an aside, people often don't believe me when I say I've never seen a cockroach

That one is pretty shocking. When I lived in South Carolina I remember I used to walk this one road late at night. Once it was dark enough I could see them scattering underneath the streetlights on the fucking sidewalk. Reminded me of sidewalk lizards in Florida, but grosser. I live in the Midwest now. I’m just glad they’re smaller here and don’t fly.

mc323 hours ago

Don’t receive shipments of goods from out of province then. Vermin get transported in packaging easily.

llm_nerd3 hours ago

Alberta of course has rats. Short of being a hermit nation with impassable borders, the alternative is impossible.

But they maintain such a critically low number through aggressive, non-stop actions that we declare it "rat free", though that's a misnomer. Similar to the measles free status doesn't actually mean measles free, but rather that it isn't spreading uncontrolled.

Though as someone who lives in Ontario, I just wanted to add that I've never seen a vermin rat in my life in this province. Not in Toronto or its subways, not on its streets, nor in various other cities throughout the province. I've seen mice, of course, but never rats. I know they exist here, but someone having not experienced them doesn't mean much.

y22442 hours ago

This bit made me laugh

But wild rats are rare. Albertans have grown so unaccustomed to rats that they frequently mistake squirrels, gophers, and other small animals for them: of the 875 reported sightings in 2025, only 47 turned out to be actual rats.

functionmouse2 hours ago

I bet most of those were rats

ddarolfi2 hours ago

I've seen plenty of rats in Toronto. I used to live around Chinatown and I could practically punt a rat just walking out my door at night.

[deleted]2 hours agocollapsed

freediddy2 hours ago

I lived in Chinatown in Toronto (College and Spadina) and I saw a rat the size of a cat running around the inside of a Chinese supermarket around 2am when I was walking around at night during my university years. I also saw smaller rats and roaches running around Chinese restaurants as well.

rawgabbitan hour ago

[dead]

debo_an hour ago

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.

kazinatoran hour ago

Also, many of them are sepa-RAT-ists.

vereloan hour ago

The irony that they figured out how to eliminate rats, but can’t diversify from oil and gas is pretty special.

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