The Rats Move Back in...Part 2

   The alarm sounded.  It was 4am.  I reached my hand across and hit my iPod, thinking that if somehow I just touched the thing it would take us back in time so I could go back to sleep.  This seemed like our 200^th day in a row waking at this time to check our rat traps, and we were getting a bit tired of the routine.  However, this was hopefully going to be our last morning, as we had almost filled our quota the previous day.  At 39, we were 1 rat short.  We sipped our tea as we drove out to the trap site, 15 minutes away, to the hopeful finding a closed trap that would mean we had to leave.

   We arrived at Mornington on the 28^th of December, and were slotted to stay a little less than a week in order to trap the 40 rats that were going to get flown across to Wongalara.  It was great to be back, visiting with everyone and being there again.  How hard could it be to trap 40 rats?  After all, in a trapping effort on the same site they caught 37 rats in one night.  We might be back to Wongalara by New Years.  Ha!  The rats had other ideas.

   Ten days later we were finally trapping our last rats.  Not that it was a bad thing, we got to visit and hang out with everyone longer than we expected, and were able to see some of the sights.  But we wanted to get home, back to our normal life.  The first few nights were slow, getting 1, 2, 3 rats at a time.  At this rate we were going to be there for a month before the total of 40 was reached.  We expanded the trapping effort, ourselves first putting out 50 traps, then 100, then nearly 200.  Nevermind the fact that other people were trapping as well, putting out nearly 100 traps in another location.  For all the effort our results were lacking, and we can’t really say why this was.  Might have been time of year, weather, the New Years holiday (maybe the rats were on vacation?), or maybe our bait didn’t smell good enough.  Come on, what creature CAN’T turn down vanilla or sesame scented peanut butter balls?  

   Lucky number 40 was caught in the 2^nd trap of the day, tucked into a nice tussock of grass.  We packed up the rest of the traps and made our way back to base, where the they were housed in their own luxury appointed box with access to plenty of food.  We even offered a turndown service, complete with fresh apple and sweet potato.  Tripadvisor would give us 5 stars.

Escapee!

   Some rats, however, were less than happy with their accommodation.  Instead of complaining to the concierge, they decided to chew things.  Being made of wood, the boxes were prone to this activity, and we awoke one morning to find an escapee.  He had chewed through ½ inch of wood in 2 nights, leaving a rat sized hole and no evidence of his whereabouts.  We put out some traps in the office, but then found a couple holes from old pipes that he may have used to escape.  Well done sir, you are the only one to escape from Alcatraz.

   The rats also had to be microchipped and radio collared, the chips allowing us to track individual progress each time we trapped, and the radio collars to track them and see what they’re up to.  Big brother indeed—the NSA would be proud.  But just think about radio collaring a live rat for a second.  Yep, it’s a struggle sometimes.  Not too tight, not too loose, make sure their front feet aren’t caught in it.  Oops, it’s running across the office floor.  The first morning of processing was a bloodbath, with Tegan nearly losing a finger to an especially bitey rat.  Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but she was a bit sore the next day.  Eventually they were all good to go, sporting tiny radio collars and the emotional scars of an alien abduction.

   We were flown out early the last morning in order to pick up the ute, make the 8 hour drive to Wongalara and get ready for the translocation.  The rats were scheduled to be flown in the following afternoon, in time to release them that night.  They arrived to a welcoming crew at the new Wongalara airstrip and we quickly transported the rats back to our house to be checked and prepped for the release.

   That night, we made our way to the enclosures and released the rats, letting each find their way out of the box and into the wide world.  Some sprinted out, happy to be done with the box, while others cautiously made their way through the bush, investigating every new object. It was cool to see them leave, a culmination of lots of hard work from many people, with more to come. This phase of the project is really looking at how the active management of cats (trapping, shooting, etc.) can help the rats sustain a population.  The theory is that with enough time to breed and build up numbers, they can absorb a few fatalities with minimal impact to the overall population.  That means we have to be hyper-vigilant in our efforts to trap Schnookems, the ever-present black cat, and her cronies.  More stories on that front are to come, with a reappearance by our old friend Cookies the cat! 

   So there you have it, the story of our New Years (we didn’t make it to midnight since we had to wake up so early) and rat translocation.  Here’s to a great 2014 for everyone reading the blog, and continued stories from our time out here in the bush.