fair. didn't know they were invasive, figured rats lived in every part of the world. if they are invasive, then exterminating the lot of them is actually a good goal to have.
why not put a bounty on them? take all the money the government was going to spend on contraptions and Looney Tunes shit and instead put it towards a bounty, say $10 per dead rat. have the free market figure it out from there.
$1 million for 100000 rats removed seems like a fair trade.
They're using baited peanut butter. How many pets (specifically dogs) are going to die as a result of this exercise in expensive, naïve futility..?
Absolute bollocks. The whole article is. Sure, this works on small, unpopulated sub-Antarctic islands, but there is zero chance of this working for the whole country. Zero...
Tom Scott has a video about the efforts. The traps have a small entrance that's only a couple inches across. Any full grown cat or dog wouldn't fit through the entrance. It has two layers of grates that would prevent a cat or dog from losing a paw.
What about all the other small animals that can get into this and eat the peanut butter? I know in north America we have tons of small mammals etc that would die in these traps
Mustelids especially due to their inherent curiosity and need to investigate tunnels. Conversely, it's why they can be so easy to trap when you want to.
NZ, oddly, hardly has any native mammals (at least large ones)…
I assume they must have some small ones, though. And probably the keas (crazy ground-dwelling parrots that eat fucken everything, even car window seals) would stick their heads in to investigate, if nothing else…
It certainly reeks of “unintended consequences” to me.
Like 1080 poison (for foxes, mostly) in Australia…
Read the article (and a corresponding National Post one) - interesting.
A few differences: for some reason, it seems rats arrived in Alberta remarkably late (apparently), thus, the province was “prepared”…
Also, it’s entirely inland, which means no rats arriving on ships (unlike Kiwiland), but also, as I pointed out, means it is surrounded by “not rat-free” provinces…
Also, weirdly, that’s Rattus norwegicus (the Norway rat), not Rattus rattus - yes, that’s its real name (the black or ship’s rat)…
Black rats are, I believe, somewhat more tenacious and, let’s say, hard to get rid of…
They’re the ones we mostly have over here. No idea why one lot went to Alberta and the other didn’t, but there you go…
Like bloody red squirrels, which I’ve never seen, vs the ubiquitous brown/grey ones…
Exterminate all rats...... they're already resistant to all poisons due to excessive use, some can chew through metal now and are extremely adaptable and resilient.
It's about a mouse civilisation, after they overthrow an empire ruled by cats, where the mice are slaves...
So, while it's cats rather than humans, this idea definitely has "legs", as it were...
I'm sure that's not the only example, but it's the first that came to my mind, lol.
It's honestly a better book series than it sounds. At least for its target age range, anyway.
Also arguably Redwall, where it's sort of unclear whether humans used to exist there, and then got wiped out, or whether it's just a world inhabited by giant woodland creatures, or hell, if they just have everything scaled down to their size (including mountains, trees, etc.)
Yeah, they were all gone by the time whitey arrived…
Believe it or not, Tasmania used to have emus, too (hence there is a place called Emu Bay), but they were, apparently, nearly extinct already, when whitey got there…
Something something easy meat for the natives, something something… 🤷🏻♂️
This could easily be done with automated sentry turrets with off the shelf image recognition and it would be bad ass. I didn't realize you guys were such massive environmental faggots around here.
Just like killing all the sparrows saved China!
came to post this, they can't possibly be any environmental consequences, no sir-ee
In some fairness its a bit different with rats and NZ as they are an invasive species
fair. didn't know they were invasive, figured rats lived in every part of the world. if they are invasive, then exterminating the lot of them is actually a good goal to have.
why not put a bounty on them? take all the money the government was going to spend on contraptions and Looney Tunes shit and instead put it towards a bounty, say $10 per dead rat. have the free market figure it out from there.
$1 million for 100000 rats removed seems like a fair trade.
Because then you end up with people breeding them for cash.
fair
Oh, I forgot that one…
Mao really was a fucking idiot. This is just another example of that.
They're using baited peanut butter. How many pets (specifically dogs) are going to die as a result of this exercise in expensive, naïve futility..?
Absolute bollocks. The whole article is. Sure, this works on small, unpopulated sub-Antarctic islands, but there is zero chance of this working for the whole country. Zero...
Idiotic AF.
Tom Scott has a video about the efforts. The traps have a small entrance that's only a couple inches across. Any full grown cat or dog wouldn't fit through the entrance. It has two layers of grates that would prevent a cat or dog from losing a paw.
That's enough for some dogs and definitely enough for cats
Every first world country exterminates stray dogs and cats on the regular.
I don't think any cat would be interested in peanut butter.
What about all the other small animals that can get into this and eat the peanut butter? I know in north America we have tons of small mammals etc that would die in these traps
Mustelids especially due to their inherent curiosity and need to investigate tunnels. Conversely, it's why they can be so easy to trap when you want to.
NZ, oddly, hardly has any native mammals (at least large ones)…
I assume they must have some small ones, though. And probably the keas (crazy ground-dwelling parrots that eat fucken everything, even car window seals) would stick their heads in to investigate, if nothing else…
It certainly reeks of “unintended consequences” to me.
Like 1080 poison (for foxes, mostly) in Australia…
Yeah but they hadn't been culturally enriched by then....
But… If the surrounding provinces aren’t, could they not just hop those land borders..?
They’re rats. Sure, there might be quarantine measures in place, but I sincerely doubt the possibility of keeping them out completely…
As a biologist, I’m happy to be proven wrong though, lol…
Read the article (and a corresponding National Post one) - interesting.
A few differences: for some reason, it seems rats arrived in Alberta remarkably late (apparently), thus, the province was “prepared”…
Also, it’s entirely inland, which means no rats arriving on ships (unlike Kiwiland), but also, as I pointed out, means it is surrounded by “not rat-free” provinces…
Also, weirdly, that’s Rattus norwegicus (the Norway rat), not Rattus rattus - yes, that’s its real name (the black or ship’s rat)…
Black rats are, I believe, somewhat more tenacious and, let’s say, hard to get rid of…
They’re the ones we mostly have over here. No idea why one lot went to Alberta and the other didn’t, but there you go…
Like bloody red squirrels, which I’ve never seen, vs the ubiquitous brown/grey ones…
Finally, a country decides to get rid of their politicians!
Exterminate all rats...... they're already resistant to all poisons due to excessive use, some can chew through metal now and are extremely adaptable and resilient.
This is going to be a worse emu war..
I don’t know man…how can it get worse than losing a shooting war to a flightless bird?
The rats work together, overthrowing all human rule NZ, making the humans left a slave race as they create a rat empire...
Or their efforts create a black death mark 2, I have REALLY low expectations on how much they can fuck this up.
Eh, I'm sure they'll be more reasonable diplomatic conversations with Skaven than the supposed government of NZ.
So, New Zealand is going to turn into a real-world Skavenblight. All hail the Great Horned Rat then.
Oh, several of you have referenced this now… Is it a game? I haven’t heard of this before, clearly, lol…
It's from Warhammer fantasy, the humanoid plague rat race are called Skaven.
I present to you: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sands_of_Time_(Hoeye_novel)
It's about a mouse civilisation, after they overthrow an empire ruled by cats, where the mice are slaves...
So, while it's cats rather than humans, this idea definitely has "legs", as it were...
I'm sure that's not the only example, but it's the first that came to my mind, lol.
It's honestly a better book series than it sounds. At least for its target age range, anyway.
Also arguably Redwall, where it's sort of unclear whether humans used to exist there, and then got wiped out, or whether it's just a world inhabited by giant woodland creatures, or hell, if they just have everything scaled down to their size (including mountains, trees, etc.)
So yeah, this is a thing, in YA fantasy, lol.
That's Australia. New Zealand actually won the war against their indigenous giant flightless bird.
Sad Moa noises…
Yeah, they were all gone by the time whitey arrived…
Believe it or not, Tasmania used to have emus, too (hence there is a place called Emu Bay), but they were, apparently, nearly extinct already, when whitey got there…
Something something easy meat for the natives, something something… 🤷🏻♂️
Sounds like we can hunt them for animal feed then.
Start with the politicians
Yeah we should definitely exterminate (((the rats))).
Didn't they learn when Australia lost to the Emus?
This could easily be done with automated sentry turrets with off the shelf image recognition and it would be bad ass. I didn't realize you guys were such massive environmental faggots around here.
Yet, somehow Alberta, Canada accomplished this many decades ago.