On farm rat education - Gov't of Alberta

By Dori Modney with files and photos from Agriculture Alberta

Menace to health, home and industry – rats not wanted in Alberta

Apr 19, 2021 | 2:13 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB. — It’s a topic that makes many squeamish. Rat infestations are not wanted anywhere and particularly not in Alberta. Rats are responsible for Bubonic plague, they can infest homes and cause destruction to stored farm products. Prairie provinces have carried out a vendetta against them for over a hundred years.

In 2012 a rat infestation at the landfill in Medicine Hat led to the killing of around 150 rodents. Several were also found in April of 2014.

Program improvements at Alberta’s Rat Control program are helping to keep the province rat free. Even though the province is deemed rat free, that doesn’t mean the little critters don’t try to make inroads.

Rats enter the province by overland migration, primarily along the Alberta/Saskatchewan border or by stowing away on planes, trains and sometimes, and semis.

Rat movement over the years – Gov’t of Alberta

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The rat control program has added advanced technology and increased lines of communication to increase response times to reported sightings of the menace.

Karen Wickerson, rat and pest program specialist at Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, says all rat sightings are investigated thoroughly.

‘Along with the Rat Control team we have made some enhancements to Alberta’s rat control program.’

A dedicated email address to report rat sightings and a live cam are two tools the team has added to a program that has been around since 1950. Last year, the Rat Control team introduced rats@gov.ab.ca.

‘With the new email address, specialists are more likely to receive an immediate visual along with location information and the team’s response time is much better. The email has been well received and may be one of the main factors responsible for doubling the number of rat sightings reported last year. Luckily, the increase in sightings does not mean there is an increase in rat presence or infestations.’

Many people are eager to report sightings, but with limited exposure to rats in the province many Albertans do not know what rats actually look like. About half of the reported sightings last year turned out to be muskrats.

Mice, moles, voles and the Rat is on the bottom left

The Rat Control team is working towards broader use of the live cameras in their work, as the team can watch, trap and bait areas to see the rodents’ patterns, in terms of movement and what is working well for getting rid of them.

As the team collects more data on rats found in Alberta, mapping out where they are found and recording their specific species, it will lead to further advances in rat control.

You can learn more information at Alberta’s Rat Control program.