rats

Friday January 27, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 27, 2017

Hamilton’s rat problem 5th worst in Ontario

Ranking based on rodent calls to pest control company Orkin Canada

Why President Trump might not be the worst for Canada

March 12, 2015

Hamilton is known for a lot of things, and its rat population is starting to become one of them.

To be sure, we’re not in the big leagues. New York and London, England are definitely the places to go if you want to see furry vermin.

But a recent rodent ranking by a pest control company suggests we are becoming a contender.

Orkin Canada says Hamilton is the fifth “rattiest city” in Ontario. Cities were ranked by the number of rodent (rat and mice) treatments the company performed from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016. The ranking was based on both residential and commercial calls.

Toronto was number one in the province followed by Ottawa. An Orkin spokesperson said the results were “not weighed for population size.” So the top five “rattiest cities” list resembles closely the top five municipalities by population in Ontario.

“In theory it is probably correct to see a correlation (between population and rodent treatments) but some cities, Brampton (10), Windsor, (7) and London (12) for example, do not follow this pattern,” a spokesperson for Orkin said. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Thursday March 12, 2015

Thursday March 12, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 12, 2015

Killing rats and licensing cats

(by Andrew Dreschel) Talk about calling in the SWAT team. The ever resourceful Coun. Sam Merulla wants to enlist captured feral cats in the city’s growing battle against swarms of rats.

Merulla’s idea is to expand the local SPCA’s program of trapping, neutering and returning stray cats to the street by strategically placing feral colonies in rodential hot spots.

“If you have an abundance of cats in those areas, those mice and rats are dealt with quite efficiently,” he says.

Last year, the SPCA’s trap-neuter-return (TNR) program treated 355 cats deemed unsuitable for adoption. So far this year, 34 cats have also become program alumni.

Widely-practised across North America, TNR is a humane way of managing fast-breeding wild cat populations and reducing euthanasia rates. But Merulla, a member of the SPCA’s board of directors, wants it ramped up and run by the city’s animal control services in partnership with the SPCA.

The idea came to him when the public health department recently identified rat infestations as an emerging priority and service demand during its budget presentation to council.

According to Merulla, it feeds into the motion he’s bringing to Wednesday’s council meeting for a study on licensing cats to promote responsible pet ownership, control overpopulation, and shave big dollars off the tax levy.

Currently, dogs in Hamilton require licensing but not cats. If they were, Merulla says the revenue could be used to grow TNR and other programs aimed at reducing euthanasia as much a humanly possible.

“The No.1 objective and purpose of all this is to hit the same target as Calgary and become one of the lowest kill-rate cities on the entire continent.”

The Hamilton-Burlington SPCA does not kill cats or dogs. That’s done by city-operated Animal Services, where both intake and death rates for cats is vastly higher than for dogs. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator - Wednesday, August 23, 2006 Terry Whitehead is the Pied Piper of Hamilton I was a little disappointed when I arrived at Larry Easter's home, the informal command centre in the war against the rats that are overrunning 50 or so back yards in a neighbourhood on Mohawk Road West. Ward Councillor Terry Whitehead was there as arranged. But as we shook hands in the driveway of the modest brick bungalow, I noticed he was dressed in an open-neck shirt, lightweight summer suit and dark shades. I was kind of hoping Whitehead would be carrying a flute and wearing a feathered cap, curly-toed shoes and parti-coloured leotards and tunic -- the traditional garb of the legendary Rattenfanger of Hamelin, who rid the German town of a plague of rats in medieval times. After all, if mechanic Larry Easter is the whistle-blower who alerted the city to the invasion, Whitehead is the Pied Piper of Hamilton who forced it to get off its duff and do something about the teeming vermin. Easter, a lithe, quick-moving man with a shock of grey hair standing upright on his head -- by style, not the result of his frightful experience with king-sized rodents -- has nothing but good things to say about Whitehead. (Source: Andrew Dreschel column, Hamilton Spectator) Hamilton, Mountain, rats, vermin, Pied Piper, Terry Whitehead, rodents, infestationÊ

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Terry Whitehead is the Pied Piper of Hamilton

I was a little disappointed when I arrived at Larry Easter’s home, the informal command centre in the war against the rats that are overrunning 50 or so back yards in a neighbourhood on Mohawk Road West.

Ward Councillor Terry Whitehead was there as arranged. But as we shook hands in the driveway of the modest brick bungalow, I noticed he was dressed in an open-neck shirt, lightweight summer suit and dark shades.

I was kind of hoping Whitehead would be carrying a flute and wearing a feathered cap, curly-toed shoes and parti-coloured leotards and tunic — the traditional garb of the legendary Rattenfanger of Hamelin, who rid the German town of a plague of rats in medieval times.

After all, if mechanic Larry Easter is the whistle-blower who alerted the city to the invasion, Whitehead is the Pied Piper of Hamilton who forced it to get off its duff and do something about the teeming vermin.

Easter, a lithe, quick-moving man with a shock of grey hair standing upright on his head — by style, not the result of his frightful experience with king-sized rodents — has nothing but good things to say about Whitehead. (Source: Andrew Dreschel column, Hamilton Spectator)