Toulouse. When ferrets are deployed to overcome rats
Through Quentin Marais
Published on
A few months after carrying out a first rat control campaign using ferrets, the town hall of Toulouse put it back, Wednesday December 1, 2021. After the Brienne canal, the operation took place in the Empalot district.
Two ferrettes attacking rats
Blackberry and Night. Two names that will be the real attraction of this first morning of December 2021, Place André Daste. It is two ferrettes deployed to overcome the rats that have taken up residence at the foot of many buildings.
They belong to Alexandre Raynal, who has practiced rat control with ferrets for four years now. “There are holes everywhere, already existing and made by rats He remarks after fencing off the area.
I will introduce them into a hole, the rats will come out and I will capture them to put them in a tank and then euthanize them. The point is that they scare them and I am the one who catches the rats. By the visual and the smell, the ferret will have a repellent effect in the medium term.
Why the ferret? ” It is the third animal that was domesticated, and it was to ratify and capture rabbits in order to be able to feed themselves, ”explains Alexandre Raynal.
It is the females who are responsible for the rat extermination, because “they are smaller and more apt to pass in the little rat galleries ”.
More than 30 captures in less than an hour
During the first phase carried out at the Canal de Brienne, 8 rats were celebrated in 15 minutes. On the side of Empalot, the second hunt started on the same basis. Nuit is the first ferret to set off.
Once the animal’s work bears fruit, Alexandre Raynal rages on with his net to capture the rat. It is not necessary just over a minute so that the first falls into the trap.
10 minutes later, Blackberry arrives in reinforcement. The captures are linked. And the size of some rodents is substantial …
Both bins fill up. ” There are nine in there, and four in the other“, Shows Alexandre Raynal, after half an hour of intervention.
Finally, at the end of an operation of a little less than an hour, it is about thirty rodents which could be accepted.
A triggered operation
The service provider was supported by an agent from the Toulouse town hall. This was represented by Françoise Ampoulange, municipal councilor responsible for the Animal. She has wait for “success” of the operation.
It is effective, and in a very short time we manage to empty the whole burrow. What is very good is that we know that rats do not recolonize this place, due to the smell of ferrets. We identified this place because during the previous mandate, I was mayor of this neighborhood and I knew that there was this problem.
The elected representative also specifies that the jar in which the so-called rats are introduced “is airtight. Inside and closed, it reproduces their burrow and it prevents them from stressing. Then we inject carbon dioxide which puts them to sleep, and then euthanize them ”.
For his part, Alexandre Raynal concedes that the training of the ferret consisted of “getting it used to come back when I call. You really have to know the animals and have a certain sensitivity ”.
“No emergency in other neighborhoods”
The year 2021 will therefore have been the year of the success of two rat control operations. The first one, at the Brienne canal, and the second, in Empalot.
According to Françoise Ampoulange, for the time being, “ there is no emergency in other neighborhoods. There, we did a second test because I didn’t want to be satisfied with just one. It turns out that it is conclusive ”.
In 2022, sur will occasionally call on this service provider. But nothing is identified to date. And I do not know at all how often it will be involved, or in which neighborhood. An agent from the town hall comes in support, but it is the service provider who manages, who closes the place, and who brings his ferrets /
The representative of the town hall of Toulouse also indicates that there are “two providers in France, including one in Occitanie. It’s a pleasure to make it work locally“.
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