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Having solved urban chickens, feral cats and outlaw bees, city council will now turn its animal control expertise to “harbour squirrels.”
Halifax South Downtown councillor Waye Mason will be asking for a staff report at Tuesday’s meeting of the Halifax and West Community Council to look at combatting the city’s rat problem.
The motion asks for HRM staff to come back with a list of “current steps being taken to provide rodent control in municipal streets, parks and Halifax Water infrastructure,” along with recommendations for improvements and education.
The last few years have seen the city’s rat population explode—or at least become a lot more visible. Milder weather has played a part, but most of the blame can probably be put on the peninsular’s rapid urban development.
Old houses are torn down and longtime rat nests are dug up—evicting the furry little critters into the streets where they’ll swim up strange new toilets looking for a place to call home.
Whether all that scurrying will settle down once the condos finally go up, or if Halifax will need some sot of Alberta-inspired rat-catching task force, will presumably be answered by Mason’s staff report.
It’s estimated there are roughly 50 rats for every city block in Halifax.
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This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2016.
Finally…… I have written to Jennifer Watts who did nothing…..
Thankyou Waye Mason….
WE have rats because we live in a city with a large harbour. Problem solved. Cash payment only. Donations from grateful citizens may be made to the Mister Meaty Memorial Fund.
Throwing $50,000 dollars at it does not make the feral cat problem anywhere near solved.
In Alberta we work hard to keep Alberta free. Probably harder in a port city but it can be done
It’s a port city Lynn; and there are rats galore in Alberta…
http://nypost.com/video/go-rat-hunting-with-nycs-elite-k-9-squad/
It is inaccurate and quite frankly irresponsible to encourage people to kill rats. Rats are sentient, they feel, they want to live as much as e do. They have as much right to be here as we do, after all we are in their habitat. They aren’t numbers to be ‘managed’.
Rats are commonly thought to be dirty, but are actually fastidiously clean animals. You wouldn’t encourage people to put a squirrel in a trap right?
Lethal methods of ‘managing’ rodents simply don’t work, and never have. It won’t cause the population to go down, more rats will just move in.
Did you know rats like to be tickled and will giggle? It is our fault their population is like this in the first place, we don’t get to make them suffer for it.
Humane rodent control:
http://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/is-ther…
Jenna Miles, you’re right, dogs do a much better job killing rats and have a blast doing it too! Tearing down the old barn and then digging up the ground underneath, every scoop of the bucket would bring 50 rats out to scurry around and Rupert would chomp and bite them in half tossing them into the air and then onto the next one without missing a beat. Good dog, he loved to work.
Ben…is that you…?
I have lived in my home in Musquodoboit Harbour for over 30 years & have never seen a rat. This year we have trapped 2 & there are more!! Our neighbours are having a terrible problem as well. Where would they have come from? There is no dump close by & we’ve had a composter from the beginning.
Call me nuts if you like, but wouldn’t the feral cat “problem” have been a good solution for the rat problem. I have to say, I like rats they’re smarter than many people I know and have feelings and empathy. And it may actually have been fleas on gerbils that transmitted plague.