Living Without Menace | movie | 2022 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

Since 1950, Alberta's fabled Rat Patrol has kept the province rat-free. But as pest control meets ecology in the 21st ce | dG1fTGxkLVVkV2FiYnM

Transcript

00:00So this is always kind of the kind of pride and joy of the pool and history is this photo.

00:12And then this is a picture of the crew that was at the site, they use bulldozers to get

00:19the rats moving, they would turn the landfill.

00:21And as the rats ran out, they were clubbed to death.

00:24So things were different back then.

00:27Things were a lot different back then in pest control.

00:31Alberta is the largest place in the world with a zero-tolerance policy towards rats.

00:37To maintain this rat-free status, the province employs a team of pest control officers known

00:43as the Rat Patrol.

00:45I have conversations all the time with people who are skeptical about the fact that we're

00:50rat-free.

00:51Rats do get in, we have no way of keeping them out or from coming into the province.

00:57But when they do, we eradicate them.

00:59Calgary, Edmonton, Grand Prairie, Lethbridge, these are like the only major cities in the

01:05world that don't have massive wild rat populations and problems.

01:12Some argue that they want to have rats as pets and some say that they'll be part of

01:17the ecosystem.

01:18But a rat is not part of the ecosystem.

01:21A rat is an invasive species, same as a house mouse, and we don't want them.

01:28Despite Alberta's success, in the 72 years since the program began, there have been no

01:33other attempts to eliminate rats on such a large scale.

01:37However, a new, more global paradigm for rat control has emerged, aimed at protecting some

01:43of the planet's most unique and vulnerable species.

01:46People think of rats as being a nuisance when they get into their houses and chew their

01:50wires or their dishwasher pipes, and in New Zealand, because of the vulnerability of our

01:55species, they actually climb into nests and eat their eggs directly out of birds' nests.

01:59Right now in New Zealand and globally, we're in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, so

02:05species are falling off the side of the planet, and once you do that, there is no coming back.

02:09Yet as humans develop techniques and technologies capable of erasing unwanted species, it's

02:15important to consider our own relationship to so-called pests.

02:18When we're looking at demonizing invasive species, we do have to look at what caused them,

02:23and that is a very uncomfortable reality.

02:26So you'll find Norway rats on every continent around the world, except for Antarctica, and

02:31kind of one of the running jokes is they're the world's most successful invasive species

02:35after humans.

02:36The rat, his future isn't as bright as it was 30 years ago.

02:43It's a tough life if you're a rat in this day and age.

02:48NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology