“Probably the push of people doing a lot more compositing, backyard gardening, having backyard chickens, which just increases the outside food sources right next to their home.”
He said the two most common types of rats on the island are the black rat and the Norway rat, both of which can reproduce quite effectively all year round thanks to our temperate climate.
While rats are common, Sutherland said the classic house mouse is still the most dominant rodent.
“The East Coast type of gardening way with lots of foliage covering the ground near houses provides aerial cover from predators, habitat for them to breed and burrow into the ground.”
Sutherland said that being a nocturnal animal, most people never see more than a flash of a rat’s tail when it escapes into a bush.
Animal Control Regulations
When a new complaint-driven bylaw in Nanaimo was passed in early 2021 aimed at reducing overall cat numbers, many residents worried that the lack of stray felines was increasing the rat population.
Sutherland said he doesn’t think there’s a connection because most cats he’s seen are better suited to killing small birds than rodents.
“Mice and rats are pretty hard to catch unless they know specifically where a burrow is or something. So I would say I haven’t seen any sort of increase directly related to not having If the cats caught rats or mice, they could probably only catch one per night.
Trapping rats is currently one of the only ways to reduce their population, and since most traps can only capture one rat at a time, it’s not the most effective strategy.
Pesticide use is becoming increasingly rare, with a popular brand of rodenticide banned in July last year.
Sutherland added that homeowners are the first line of defense against large rat populations.
Food sources, access to water and habitat are the key factors in making a property less inviting to rodents.
Sutherland said that without people making these changes or using pet- and bird-safe traps, the rodent population will continue to thrive as our population grows.
“Or we can go back in time to a time before 1980 and use first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides that require multiple meals, aren’t very effective, and that’s pretty much the tools we have because the professionals of pest control have become even more limited.”
A ban on these second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides has been put in place from July 21, 2021 to January 30, 2023, with Sutherland saying they are likely to be permanently banned after the expiry date.
National pest control company ranked Nanaimo 20thplace on their list of the most “failed” cities in British Columbia, with Vancouver taking the top spot.
Vancouver also ranked second nationwide, eclipsed only by Toronto which took first place
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