Slashdot Mirror
Killing Rats with GPS
techmaven writes "When Channel Islands National Park officials needed an estimated about 300 rats exterminated on the east side of environmentally sensitive Anacapa Island, Aspen Ag Helicopters got the call. The kill was necessary because the rodents,
descendants of rats that reached the island by way of a shipwreck a century or more ago, were decimating the populations of two rare seabirds. And GPS helped the helicopter company do the job."
...that they sprayed enough pesticide on a small island to kill all 100-300 rats. Either they killed them all, as well as every other living organism on the island that is roughly the same size as a rat, or they didn't kill every rat. Rats are decently sized, it's a lot different than killing insect pests. Insect pests might require a few ppm (parts-per-million) pesticide in the air, but the kill a rat, hamster, gerbil, mouse, bird, anything of that size, would require much much more "pesticide." They must have required quite a lethal dose to get all 100-300 of them, as the article says. Not to mention the fact that the dose would have to be increased to take into account that a lot of the particles will attach themselves to plants, trees, etc... which are above ground. This will not contribute to airborn particles, and will not be able to kill a rat (unless they are of the mutated tree-climbing variety!) So the bottom line is, the dosage must have been huge for this small island. Or else there are still some rats around which have survived. They have probably started mating already. I think bringing in some owls might have been a smarter idea.
Perhaps these farmers would be interested in an offshoot of our quite popular line of nut transportation satchels.
They're mainly used to transport grain, and are specifically designed in order that when shipping grain, the designated recipient is assured that the entire shipment will arrive intact.
We call it the CornWhole system, and once put in place, it's extremely difficult for the target to be penetrated by any agent (animal or chemical) except those specifically authorized.
We hope that it will expand in practical use, as it provides for particularly efficient transport, especially when coupled with the RNTP protocol we've established.
-------------------
I am a highly intelligent squirrel
... so they didn't have to soak the place with RAID. I'm guessing that it is possible to make bait which is attractive to rats, but not birds.
Santa Anacapa is three really small islands, so I doubt there are any native land mammals there (or ones which aren't common on nearby islands.) Santa Cruz island has some native foxes, but that's about it. The seals are quite happy in the area, though. Maybe the beaches are the areas where the poison isn't allowed.
I don't know about all this. Increasing yields, paying huge sums of money... in the end, it still means that less and less human intervention is needed, less jobs are created, big farms get richer and smaller farms just can't keep up.
It's not really like technology is helping democratise here, is it?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant