Blitzing rodents at the landfills

About eight months ago WasteServ commissioned a study on the fate of the rats resident in Maghtab and Qortin in Gozo once these were closed on May 1. A monitoring station with poison was also set up to determine the rat population.

The study revealed that there was only one type dwelling in the landfills and this was the Norwegian Rat. Basically this kind of rat did not live very healthily without access to water and only emigrated in a range of 50 metres.

In Qortin it resulted that the population of rats was much bigger than the one in Maghtab since a stream running through the Gozo landfill provided the perfect environment.

"Based on these results we issued a tender for a blitz treatment of the rats - an acute poison which guaranteed to kill the rat 20 minutes from its ingestion," Dr Ciantar said.

However, the rats were cunning enough to realise their friends were dying after consuming the poison, so another method had to be used. This time a poison that kills off a rat within 20 hours was used.

"This treatment proved to be successful in all the landfills," he said. However, since there was a high concentration of poison both within the landfill and outside, the rats' behaviour became erratic and they started going out in the streets hunting for water and new burrows.

"This is exactly what happened in Qortin. For three days it was hard to predict their behaviour. However, the situation is now under control," he explained.

Two weeks ago residents in Xaghra complained they were being terrorised at night by an army of rats, which were leaving the Qortin dumpsite and going on a rampage in the search of scraps of food to eat.