The Washington Post - 05.10.2019

A10 EZ RE K T H E  W A S H I N G T O N  P O S T.S A T U R D A Y, O C T O B E R  5 ,  2 0 1 9

The World

YEMEN

Saudis are considering

Houthi cease-fire offer

Saudi Arabia is considering a
proposal by Yemen’s Iran-aligned
Houthi movement for some form
of cease-fire that, if agreed to,
could bolster U.N. efforts to end
a devastating war in Yemen that
is harming Riyadh’s reputation.
The Houthis offered two
weeks ago to stop aiming missile
and drone attacks at Saudi
Arabia if the Western-backed
coalition led by Riyadh takes
equivalent steps, as a move
toward what a Houthi leader
called a “comprehensive national
reconciliation” in Yemen.
There was no immediate

Saudi acceptance or rejection of

the Houthi offer. But Riyadh this

week welcomed the move, and

three diplomatic and two other

sources familiar with the matter

told Reuters that said the

kingdom is seriously considering

some form of cease-fire to try to

de-escalate the conflict.

The Saudis intervened

in Yemen in 2015 to aid the

government of President Abed

Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

— Reuters

FRANCE

Anti-terror prosecutor

to probe knife attack

France’s anti-terrorism

prosecutor has taken the lead in

investigating a knife attack in

which an IT worker at police

headquarters in Paris killed four

co-workers before an officer

fatally shot him.

Officials have not said there

was a terror motive behind

Thursday’s attack near Notre

Dame Cathedral, but the

decision to hand the case to

anti-terror prosecutors usually

indicates that a terrorism link is

the focus of inquiries.

A judicial source close to the

investigation said the anti-terror

prosecutor took over the inquiry

after the interrogation of several

of the attacker’s close associates,

including his wife, and an

examination of his cellphone.

The 45-year-old attacker, who

had worked at the headquarters

for several years, converted to

Islam about 18 months ago,

French media reported.

— Reuters

Greece says Turkey must

control migrant flow: Greece’s

Prime Minister Kyriakos

Mitsotakis accused Turkey of

appearing to “exploit” Europe’s

migrant crisis for its own ends

and said Ankara could and

should control migrant flows to

the continent. Greece, the route

into the European Union for

nearly 1 million migrants in 2015,

is dealing with a new and steep

rise in people crossing the

Aegean to its islands from

neighboring Turkey after a

relative three-year lull. The

influx has piled pressure on its

overcrowded migrant camps and

prompted the new conservative

government to announce a

stricter policy to curb the flows.

Coldblooded killing sparks

anger in Libya: Surveillance

cameras caught armed men

shooting to death a young man

in one of the busiest streets in

Libya’s capital, Tripoli, sparking

anger and demands that the

government declare a state of

emergency. The footage of the

killing of Rashid al-Bakoush and

the wounding of his brother

Thursday in Tripoli’s Serraj

district went viral on social

media. It underscored the state

of lawlessness in Libya, where

hundreds of militias hold sway

across the country amid the

absence of law and order.

Gunmen abduct British couple

in Philippines: At least four

gunmen abducted an elderly

British man and his Filipino wife

from their southern Philippine

beach resort within sight of

several people, police and

military officials said. Police Cpl.

Jairus de los Reyes said the

armed suspects took Allan

Hyrons and his wife, Wilma,

from their hut at the resort at

nightfall Friday and dragged

them to a motorboat in Tukuran

town in Zamboanga del Sur

province. Police are searching for

the gunmen and the couple, who

own two schools and the resort

in the coastal town, he said.

— From news services

D I G E S T

BY AMANDA COLETTA

The phone call left veteran in-
vestigator Phil Merrill “shocked.”
But also, he admits, just a tiny bit
exhilarated.
A tipster had phoned the 24-
hour hotline to report a sighting
of the villain Merrill has spent a
career hunting.
The perp was hiding in a paper
recycling plant in Calgary, Alber-
ta. When investigators arrived,
they made a surprising discovery:
He wasn’t alone. Authorities
eventually rounded up all six of
the gang.
It wasn’t easy, Merrill says: “It’s
hard to see a rat with all of the
paper.”
Pest-control authorities from
Washington, D.C., to Wellington,
New Zealand, are working to bat-
tle growing rat populations. They
might want to meet Merrill.
From his office in Lethbridge,
the loquacious 68-year-old leads
Alberta’s much lauded, but never
replicated, rat-control program.
Key elements: zero tolerance, free
poison and the Rat Patrol, a team
of officers armed with shotguns,
defending the Alberta-Saskatche-
wan border from the small invad-
ers.
Next year, the province cel-
ebrates 70 years rat-free.
Now, a caveat: “When we say
we’re rat-free,” Merrill says, “it
means that we don’t have a resi-
dent or breeding rat population.”
Rattus norvegicus — the brown
rat — is a destructive force in
much of the world, wreaking eco-
logical havoc, contaminating
crops, vandalizing property and
spreading as many as 35 diseases.
The species arrived in North
America aboard the sailing ships
of the late 18th century, but Alber-
ta did not worry much about the
pest until the summer of 1950.
That is when a colony was discov-
ered on its doorstep in the border
town of Alsask, Saskatchewan. A
hit squad was dispatched, and the
infestation was eradicated. But
the rats returned.
“For the first time in the history
of Alberta, rats have infiltrated
the eastern border of the province
to the point of establishing colo-
nies in hamlets and farms,” David
Ure, the provincial agriculture
minister, warned in a 1951 report.
Officials decided they needed
to act quickly and ruthlessly to
protect their citizens and their
crops from the little miscreants.
Alberta is protected by bitterly
cold forests to the north, mostly
barren land to the south and
mountains to the west. The gov-
ernment focused its efforts on the
Saskatchewan border to the east,
setting up a Rat Control Zone,
where armed investigators kept
watch for any rat that dared put its
paws on Alberta territory — and
snuffed it out.
From 1952 to 1953, nearly 70
tons of tracking powder was
blown underneath the permanent
buildings in the Rat Control Zone.
Civilians were required to rat-
proof their properties and kill any
rats they saw. Authorities provid-
ed the poison warfarin free of
charge.
But there was a problem: Most
Albertans did not have the faint-
est clue what their enemy looked
like. So officials paraded rat speci-

mens around the province, dis-

tributed pamphlets on how to ex-

terminate them, and displayed

anti-rat posters at post offices,

grain elevators and schools.

“You can’t ignore the rat,” one

example reads. “He’s a menace to

HEALTH... HOME... INDUS-

TRY... KILL HIM!”

Lianne McTavish, an art history

professor at the University of Al-

berta, co-authored an analysis of

the posters in 2011. She found that

they were modeled after World

War II posters that rallied the

home front in the war against a

common enemy.

In a 1954 pamphlet, O.S. Long-

man, the deputy agriculture min-

ister, admonished Albertans who

were “providing the rat with com-

fortable shelter and plenty of

food.”

Within a decade, the number of

infestations began to drop signifi-

cantly, and Alberta declared victo-

ry. But the province is no less

attentive, its defenses no less

alert. Rats sometimes hitch rides

on planes, trains and automo-

biles, or sneak in on foot.

Another caveat: Zoos and re-

searchers may keep rats. But they

need a special permit from the

provincial government.

Pet rats? They are illegal. A

family new to Calgary learned

that lesson the hard way in 2010,

when it was forced to surrender

Matilda to authorities. She was

spared a death sentence when

neighboring British Columbia of-

fered her sanctuary.

Merrill’s team still patrols the

Rat Control Zone. They conduct

twice-yearly inspections of farms

and buildings along an 18-mile

wide stretch of the Alberta-

Saskatchewan border, looking for

the telltale signs: droppings, chew

marks, tracks.

“Some of the guys like to [shoot

the rats] because it’s fun,” Merrill

says. “It’s probably easier to just

bait them out.”

The government’s 24-hour rat

hotline (310-RATS) logs hundreds

of false alarms each year. Accord-

ingly, it dedicates a full page on its

website to “Animals Mistaken for

Rats” — pocket gophers, red squir-

rels and muskrats, to name a few.

The discovery of a single rat

does not trouble Merrill’s team

much because it can be trapped or

baited fairly easily. But infesta-

tions — two or more rats together

— are cause for real concern.

There are a handful each year, and

they often garner news coverage

here.

Merrill has counted three infes-

tations this year: two along the

border that were not dealt with

effectively last year, and the one in

the Calgary paper recycling plant

— a rarity in a major city.

“We get a little excited because

we don’t get too many,” he says. “I

won’t say it’s fun. But everyone’s

on high alert.”

Saskatchewan has its own

rat-control program. Richard

Wilkins, a specialist with that

province’s Ministry of Agricul-

ture, says Alberta does an “excel-

lent” job of controlling rats. But he

thinks it’s taking some liberties

with its definition of rat-free.

“A rat’s a rat,” he said. “If they

want to blame us for the rat popu-

lation, we could blame Manitoba,

Manitoba could blame Ontario,

Ontario could blame Quebec.

“They have them on the West

Coast. They have them on the East

Coast. They’re intelligent and

adaptive. They can make a home

anywhere.”

There are those who speak for

the rats.

Trev Miller, an organizer with

the Calgary Animal Rights Effort,

says it’s “very important” that Al-

berta remain free of pests. But the

rat-control program, he says, is

too punishing.

“It’s a very difficult situation,”

he says. “The current program is

very cruel.”

Lisa Hutcheon, president of the

Small Animal Rescue Society of

British Columbia, says Albertans

and soon-to-be-Albertans have

contacted her organization a

handful of times in the past dec-

ade looking for refuge for their pet

rats. Some worry that even if they

do manage to successfully hide

their pet rats from the authorities,

they will not be able to get them

medical care if they fall ill.

Hutcheon says rats are her

charity’s most popular pet for

adoption. She says Alberta should

draw a distinction between wild

rats and domesticated rats.

“I really don’t understand it,”

she says. “They’re really affection-

ate, they love their people and

they’re amazing animals. I don’t

think a lot of people appreciate

them enough.”

In 2012, an infestation at a land-

fill near Medicine Hat, Alberta,

dominated several news cycles.

Officials set up infrared cameras

and bait and unleashed a pair of

bull snakes. When that proved

futile, they launched “Operation

Haystack,” in which they deployed

bales of hay laced with poison

across the city.

Another caveat: Alberta is not

the only jurisdiction in the world

that has effectively eradicated

rats. South Georgia Island, a Brit-

ish overseas territory, and Mac-

quarie Island, a reserve of the

Australian state of Tasmania,

have dumped tons of poison in the

last decade to snuff out the ver-

min.

But there’s something different

about Alberta.

When McTavish moved to the

province, she says, she learned

“pretty quickly” about the rats.

“It’s part of the provincial iden-

tity,” she says. “It’s part of the way

people understand Alberta.”

The France-size province of

4.3 million is said to be the largest

jurisdiction in the world to rid

itself of the rodent.

Merrill believes the vigilance is

worth the effort. The program

costs less than $377,000 per year

to administer. In 2004, the

government-funded Alberta Re-

search Council estimated that it

saves more than $31 million in

economic and environmental

damage.

Alberta benefits from geogra-

phy. Banishing rats is much more

difficult for port cities with large

coastlines, which nurture much of

what rats like to eat. But Merrill

believes it is not impossible to

replicate the province’s success.

He has been intrigued by the

Ekomille, a contraption being

rolled out in Brooklyn that at-

tracts rats with bait and then

drops them through a trap door to

drown in an alcoholic substance.

“I think it’s going to work,” Mer-

rill says. “It’s probably not going to

work extremely well, because rats

are extremely smart. They’ll

watch their friend go in there,

splash around a little and die, and

then they won’t go in there.”

Merrill plans to retire next year.

After a long career fighting the

rodents, he says he has “respect”

for them.

“I love to talk about rats!” he

says. “I certainly don’t hate them,

because without them, I wouldn’t

have a job.”

[email protected]

Rat-free for seven

decades: How a

Canadian province

foiled an invasion

Although Alberta has effectively banished the

troublesome rodents, it hasn’t let down its guard

PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF ALBERTA

A poster, circa 1948, issued by Alberta’s Department of Public Health. Lianne McTavish, a University of Alberta art history professor,

says the province’s posters of that era were modeled after World War II banners that rallied the home front against a common enemy.

BONNIE JO MOUNT/THE WASHINGTON POST

The common rat is a destructive force in much of the world,

vandalizing property and spreading as many as 35 diseases.