The rat colony at the city landfill in Medicine Hat has been eradicated after another aggressive push by workers to rid the area of rodents.
On Tuesday, Alberta Rat Patrol staff and landfill workers used a large track hoe to dig away at the trash pile where the rats were living.
Crews were standing by to kill any rats that tried to escape but as they dug deeper they only found dead rats.
Officials believe the dead rats likely ate the poison that was set out for them in the last few weeks.
Medicine Hat's Solid Waste Manager, Edward Jollymore, says they didn't find any live rats living in the colony.
“We've learned that the protocol that's been used for the last 50 years in Alberta still works and is to monitor for rats, when we find the rats we hit them with a bait program very aggressively and be persistent,” said Jollymore.
The rats were first spotted at the landfill back in August and crews set up bait traps to kill as many rats as possible and prevent them from reproducing further.
Jollymore says a total of 113 rats were found at the landfill.
Officials are still investigating to try and determine where the rats came from.
