Thread

Alberta's image as world's only rat-free region shattered by discovery of rat

47 points · 35 comments · pseudolus

defrost · 1790410262 · focus · HN ↗
Australia’s Lord Howe Island has officially been the world’s largest inhabited island to eradicate feral rodents since July 2023:
```
  Two years should elapse before an island can declare itself ‘rodent free’, allowing for any survivors to breed up to a detectable level.

  So, in July 2023, the LHIB ‘Checkpoint’ program began its search for rodents.

  Over a two-week period, teams systematically surveyed the island’s Permanent Park Preserve and the settlement area. More than 950 detection device checks were undertaken including 140 tracking tunnels, 32 trail cameras, and 300 wax tags and chew cards, along with sweeps by detection dogs. The collected evidence, analysed by the Island Eradication Advisory Group from the New Zealand Department of Conservation, found no signs of rats or mice on the island.

  The island’s rodent population had – officially – been eradicated. 
```
~ <a href="https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/nature-wildlife/2026/06/freed-from-the-rat-race/" rel="nofollow">https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/nature-wildlife/2026...
1. nephihaha · 1790413669 · focus · HN ↗
  The majority of Antarctica is rat free.
  1. ThrustVectoring · 1790413734 · focus · HN ↗
    Antarctica has zero permanent inhabitants
    defrost · 1790415830 · focus · HN ↗
    The Emperor Penguins would disagree- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_Antarctica" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_Antarctica
    They've been lucky the area's too cold for Black Rats from ship wrecks to survive and decimate their colonies, as has happened to many birds on many islands and remote peninsulas.
    nephihaha · 1790438936 · focus · HN ↗
    Neither does Lord Howe Island, but continental Antarctica is probably the world's largest rat-free region. I'm sure many rats have made it ashore, and survived briefly, and some have managed to live in stations/bases, but most of the continent will be rat-free.
    On the other hand, I'm aware rats have managed to survived in South Georgia, and caused problems for local flora and fauna there.

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