Oh, rats! Rodent sighting means Anchorage has infestations, too

ANCHORAGE — Anchorage can no longer claim to be the largest port city in the Northern Hemisphere without known rat infestations.

State biologist Rick Sinnott caught and killed two Norway rats found living at a pond near a south Anchorage school, and professional exterminators hired by the city placed more traps at the scene Monday afternoon.

"We're concerned," said Chris Tofteberg, manager of the municipal food-safety and sanitation program. "It sounds like they're domestic rats turning feral as we speak."

Crews from American Pest Management planned to set both live and snap traps until at least a week passes without any more animals being caught, said operations manager Larry Jones.

"This is the first time that we have a record of a confirmed trapping of a rat out in the environment" in Anchorage, said Jones, who has been in the pest-control business in Alaska for 25 years.

Theresa Bayer discovered the rats scrambling from a culvert at a park near Dimond High School and later showed Sinnott a videotape of a footlong rodent as proof.

"When we were feeding the ducks, the rats came swimming out of the water, and it was so gross," Bayer told the Anchorage Daily News.

Native to the Asian steppes, Norway rats have gradually spread around the globe by catching rides on ships and cargo. They've caused billions of dollars in damage, have spread disease and driven bird species to local extinction on countless islands. They're also known as common or brown rats.

"They're extremely resourceful, and they're very durable," Tofteberg said. "They're kind of like cockroaches, and once they get established, they're hard to get rid of."

As a result, Anchorage has a strict anti-rat law that makes it illegal to import, buy, sell or breed any member of the Rattus genus without a permit from the health department. No one in town currently has a permit, Tofteberg said. It wasn't clear Monday where these rats came from, though their coloring suggests they were domestic or lab varieties.

"It's quite possible that somebody had them as pets and threw them out," he said.