Info on RAT situation in Windsor, Maine

[SQ]

Crossposts .... (MRR Adoption Counselor facebook page)

From Tuesday:

A hoarding case in Windsor, Me, (potentially 400 rats!) town officials want to go to the guys house TOMORROW with pest control, code enforcement, etc to deal with the situation rather than wait for MRR and the State to hel
p! Please call and express your anger over them potentially killing DOMESTIC rats with poison when there are other options~! 207-445-2998 ask for Theresa Haskell http://www.windsor.maine.gov/contact.html
Mainers tune into channel 13 news for the lop sided story!

later on Tuesday:

Update on the hoarding situation: Talked to the ACO some more tonight. It sounds like this person is feeding wild rats as well as domestic rats. The rats mostly live outside, they come and go as they please. The person traps the pregnant rats and lets them have their babies in the house in cages, then released them when the babies are old enough. This just sounds like a giant mess. MRR wont be abl
e to take many. They sound like they may be feral for the most part so we will concentrate on the young babies who have a chance to be socialized. The State is getting involved and we will help them as much as we can with trapping and catching but everything is still very much up in the air. Stay tuned for more info as it comes to us! ~Kim~

 

[SQ]

Crosspost from Thursday (MRR Adoption Counselor facebook page)

Update on Rat Hoarding Case: First I want to thank you all for emailing the town manager! She totally changed her tune this morning and later when we went to her office she had the stack of 19 e-mails printed and clipped together! LOL It was awesome!

So basically we got there to find that there are HUNDREDS of rats (domestic and wild) living outside, under buildings, in walls, tunneled under grou
nd, pretty much anywhere and everywhere! Unfortunately every last one of these rats are totally and utterly FERAL. Most have never been touched by people before. He also has hundreds of mice infesting a trailer. He has a 16 ft Red Tail Boa and a black and white 5 yr old Tagu that is massive! He feeds the rats to the reptiles which is how this whole mess got started.

The man involved is severely mentally ill and a scary guy so we had to tread lightly. It is so hard to explain the situation because it is so complex!

We will be taking very few of these rats, if any at all. If we come across a very young litter we may try to rehab them but so far all the ones we can see and trap have already been weaned and are just too wild.

We did take some young ones home with us today (now in CN's in Kim's barn) to see how they adjust to captivity but we do not have a lot of hope. We also took a tank of mice that we will try to help (lots of babies), but again, there are no promises that we can rehab these animals.

That's all we have for you now. Just wanted to fill you in. Will update more as things happen. Thank you for your support!

Kim & Robin

 

[jorats]

Wow! What a situation. Anyone know what's the plan? Will they displace the rats or *gulp* exterminate? *shudder*

 

[temblabamomo]

Oh dear, I missed this post over the weekend.

How sad. What on earth can they possibly do with so many feral rats?

What a horrible situation :sad3:

 

[KatTheHippie]

This is just depressing.. those poor babies. Ugh, people make me sick.