On Easter Sunday in 2023, Karen Wickerson was at home in Airdrie, Alta., when an email arrived in her inbox. The sender got right to the point: There was a rat in her backyard. As evidence, she attached a photo of a large black roof rat eating out of a bird feeder.

Wickerson pulled on her work boots and her Government of Alberta jacket and drove 25 minutes to meet the woman who sent the email. The woman didn’t want rodenticide used in her backyard, so Wickerson set up two traps big enough to catch a rat and filled them with a stinky, non-poisonous bait. Then, some time over the next 48 hours—snap!