Seychellois of all political stripes are agreed on one thing; that rats must be eradicated since it is linked to the potentially deadly leptospirosis.
A motion to that effect tabled in the Assembly by Opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan met with unanimous approval from both sides of the house.
According to the Health Ministry, there have been 33 cases of leptospirosis, up to July, of which four were fatal. But one sure thing about official figures is that they can be set low or high , depending on what one wants to prove. In that case, it is believed that the actual figures are higher, probably a dozen fatalities rather than those released.
Seychellois generally are clean people and we have embarked on a cleanliness campaign to eliminate any refuge for the rodents around houses. But we still have to get rid of the rodents, which have presumably fled into the lush vegetation.
Unfortunately , since several years , rat poison had been unavailable. Traps like “ tapet” and “ ratyer” are also hard to come by. Few shops, like Sham Peng Tong, import them, but the small consignment only lasts a few days. So the rats are still very much alive and breed like rabbits.
We cannot shoot rats as goats are culled on Aldabra and it is a fallacy to say that rat poison would harm the environment. They would end up in the belly of the dead rodents.
And we want them all dead, don’t we? Some bird sanctuaries and new tourist resorts like Fregate and North Islands have carried out successful deratisation campaigns to safeguard human health and good environment.