Second rule of Force Field at the Border is you do NOT talk about Force Field at the Border.
From what I gather (living in Toronto), it’s more of a problem with restaurants or food stores.
Rat spotted in Chinatown restaurant: http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20081009/081009_ratrestaurant
Not permitted and not existing are two different things. There was something of a province-wide “panic” a couple of years ago when someone dumped a box full of rats in an alley in Calgary. The vicious lawbreakers were apprehended and dealt with -* or so they’d have us believe!*
Heh. So this fact about Alberta not having any rats seems to be quite well-known among Albertans, for sightings to cause such a stir. I must say I’d never heard about it before.
It’s quite remarkable they are able to eliminate them since almost all urban centers are infested with them. They’re everywhere you don’t see; sewers, restaurants, grocery stores, dumps and storage bins.
Secondly, they feed on mice which Alberta has in adundance.
Amazing!
I was in Calgary when somebody evidently let rats onto the street. People were upset, and destroying the rats was a huge priority. It was major news for at least a week and most people would still remember it. About 15 to 20 rats come to Alberta per year in trailers and shipping containers and animal control is there to deal with them.
Saskatchewan has also had a rat eradication program since the 1970s and are close to being rat free. That helps us as we share a border that looks like this - |
Man, how are we supposed to keep Force Field on the Border quiet when they post pictures like that? :mad:
You mean curling season was over?
Good luck on this one, Alberta. If I had to bet, I’d bet on the rats. Your time will come!
Ouch.
Shows how much you know; it should have been, “You mean hockey season was over?” Honest-to-God news story here mid-summer - “Hockey season starts in two months!”
I’ve only seen rats twice in my long ugly life.
Did you read the article linked to above? Norway rats either live in damp environments or are coexistent with humans. So if the borders of your province are dry and sparsely populated (as is generally the case with Alberta and Saskatchewan), you have a good head start on being rat-free.
OK…why can’t the US get something like this started? I don’t want to live amongst the rats!
I’m impressed. The NZ Department of Conservation has run several successful rat eradication programs on small offshore islands/isolated valleys (for use as bird/tuatara sanctuaries), but maintaining an area like Alberta must be a massive job. The conditions obviously help, as well as the fact that Norwegian Rats don’t survive too well outside of human habitation areas in colder climates.
Si
I have lived In Calgary, Edmonton, Spruce Grove and stony plain Alberta for the last 30 years and have never seen a Rat. But we do have quite a few mice
But do you have prairie zombies? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) 
zombie or no
the unofficial motto of the rcmp given in the media is ‘we always get our rat’
they are still working on the other provinces.
That map looks a bit different now - I guess the rats finally won.
I for one welcome our new zombie rat overlords.