Vancouver residents are starting to smell a rat after city-wide infestations of the rabid rodents are popping up in parks, public spaces and even in SkyTrain LRT stations.A year after the province banned rat poison, the city is facing an infestation the likes of which it has rarely seen in modern times.When the sun goes down, swarms of rats take to the streets scurrying through the legs of pedestrians and ransacking rubbish cans and litter on the ground.The situation has gotten so bad, dozens of videos are popping up on social media showing the varmints, literally the size of small cats, racing down Burrard Street.Some are blaming — what else? — climate change for the sudden proliferation of the vermin. But the word is out on the street that the root cause is actually a decision by the BC government to ban rat poison starting last year..In January, 2023, it restricted the use so-called ‘second generation anticoagulant rodenticides’ (SGARs) on the grounds that they posed a risk to wildlife that eat the poisoned rodents — such as hawks and owls — where they persisted in the food chain.According to the BC government website, the active ingredients are highly toxic, causing death by internal bleeding. The risk of secondary poisoning for wildlife by SGARs is higher than first-generation products because the active ingredients stay in animal tissue for a long time after feeding.Consequently, only “essential services” such as hospitals, food production facilities — and corners — were exempt.The result is that areas of Vancouver that have never had rats are reporting infestations in the hundreds where they may have had two or three in the past. Exterminators are reporting that traps are regularly filling with dozens of critters.According to the BC government the best method is control.“The key to effective pest management is to prevent pests from becoming a problem in the first place,” it says, recommending traps over poison. .But exterminators disagree.“With every action, there is always a reaction. In this case, the apparent reaction we are seeing appears to be a 50% increase in rats and mice,” Jason Page, general manager with Solutions Pest Control told The Canadian Press.There are two types of rats in BC: the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) and the roof rat (Rattus rattus). Rats aren’t native to BC and were introduced via boat traffic in the mid-1800s. They tend to thrive only in urban areas where food is abundant or where winters are mild but have now expanded their range as far east as the Kootenays. .Rats are prodigious breeders and a single breeding pair could theoretically produce more than 900 offspring within a single year.That’s why Alberta has had a rat control program since the 1950s and BC advocates say now is the time for it to have one too — if it isn’t already too late. Kaylee Byers, a self-proclaimed “rat detective” at Simon Fraser University, said cities in BC should follow the lead of rat-free provinces, such as Alberta, as well as invest in rat management programs.“Rats are a part of our cities, and managing them is a complex issue,” she told CP. “We need to think more broadly, we need to address it as a complex issue in order to come up with innovative and multiple solutions to managing rats now and in the future.”
