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MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – Another 15 dead rats have been pulled from a southern Alberta landfill that has been plagued by the pests.

The City of Medicine Hat is working to get rid of the rodents and is providing a weekly update.

Last week, 63 dead rats were discovered and the week before there were 39. The latest find brings the total of dead rats up to 78.

Jason Storch, an agricultural fieldman with Cypress County, says he can’t put a timeline on the situation.

The rats were spotted at the dump earlier this month after someone reported finding one in a farmyard.

Alberta has always prided itself on being rat free, but that status has been in question since August 2012 when the vermin were first found in the landfill.

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At least 100 Norway rats were killed by city workers after an 80- metre-long nest was discovered. It took six hours for 21 workers and two excavators to dismantle it.

The landfill has been continuously monitored since then and the city credits that vigilance for discovering the new cases. City officials said earlier this month that more poison was being put out and that staff would check bait stations daily.

Agricultural fieldmen known by Albertans as the “rat patrol” have worked for years to target invading rats in a control zone along the province’s eastern boundary.

(CJCY, The Canadian Press)