Rats are back in the crosshairs of Sicamous council after a couple of the critters decided to shop local.
Coun. Bob Evans revisited the issue after a local business owner reported seeing a “rat walk through the front door” of his store and had to help remove one from a neighbouring location.
“This is just small anecdotal evidence of a big problem we have,” he pointed out, asking about options. “Can we... consider kind of getting aggressive with this and bringing in Orkin with traps and getting some rat hit men on the job, or something like that.”
Operations manager Darrell Symbaluk explained that the district has thus far “fought back” with education of cleaning up compost, fruit fall and garbage.
“We’re continually pushing out that information as best we can,” he said, adding that he’ll also look into Orkin and whether or not they use poison.
In response to Evans’ query about traps the district used to have available for use by the public, Symbaluk said they’re baited with poison and can’t be used due to the threat to birds of prey and other predators. He wasn’t, however, sure about other, safer bait options for the traps.
“I can take that as an information request,” Symbaluk said. “And reach out to somebody that does rats for a living and see what we can come up with.”
As a restaurateur, Coun.Ian Baillie has explored options to keep vermin away from his establishments and said there a number of “non-poison but lethal” routes certified by the province that the district could look at. With that and other suggestions on the table, council directed Symbaluk to work with Baillie in exploring different options that would work for the community.