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