A rat trap that was placed under a residential building on St. Paul Island, Alaska, after a resident reported an alleged sighting.Photo by Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Ecosystem Conservation Office/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Why an Alaska island is using peanut butter and black lights to find a rat that might not exist

The anxiety on St. Paul Island is the latest of longstanding efforts to get or keep non-native rats off some of the most remote, but ecologically diverse, islands in Alaska

by · National Post

On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it.

A rat.

The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on St. Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life.

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