In June 2009 it was announced that the rats on Rat Island had finally been eradicated, 229 years after a Japanese shipwreck caused an infestation. Where is Rat Island?
Rat Island (just off rat-infested South Georgia Island), where breeding seabirds could be badly affected if rats were introduced, is subject to special measures and regularly monitored for rat invasions. As part of island restoration some islands' rat populations have been eradicated to protect or restore the ecology. Hawadax Island, Alaska was declared rat free after 229 years and Campbell Island, New Zealand after almost 200 years. Breaksea Island in New Zealand was declared rat free in 1988 after an eradication campaign based on a successful trial on the smaller Hawea Island nearby. In January 2015 an international "Rat Team" set
Brown rat arsenic. By 1960, the number of rat infestations in Alberta had dropped to below 200 per year. In 2002, the province finally recorded its first year with zero rat infestations, and from 2002 to 2007 there were only two infestations found. After an infestation of rats in the Medicine Hat landfill was found in 2012, the province's rat-free status was questioned, but provincial government rat control specialists brought in excavating machinery, dug out, shot, and poisoned 147 rats in the landfill, and no live rats were found thereafter. In 2013, the number of rat infestations in Alberta dropped to zero