Hong Kong authorities have suspended a rodent control contractor after workers were found to be keeping trapped rats at night instead of sending them off for disposal.
Department of Food and Environmental Hygiene (FEHD) said Last week it had issued a “notice of open default” – submitted for “serious defects in the course of service delivery” – to a rodent control contract firm.
The contractor did not properly store the rats’ cages and failed to “humanely” dispose of the rats on the same day they were captured.
An in-charge supervisor was also suspended, the statement added.
The department said some workers did not follow procedures for moving rat cages to designated locations “for the sake of convenience.”
“FEHD believes this is an isolated incident, but will strengthen surprise inspections of rodent storage and handling,” the department said in a Chinese-language social media post.
It will also order contracting firms to increase training for workers, the department added.
The suspension came after local media HK01 reported that a rodent control contractor operating in Kwai Chung had stored rat cages on a slope near the Shek Lei Adventure Playground overnight and fed the captured rodents sliced apples and sweet potatoes.
A site supervisor told the media that workers sometimes “forgot” to take the captured rodents to designated waste collection points, where the rats would be drowned in bleach and water. The warden said they were not breeding the captured animals.
The supervisor also denied that they could earn rewards for sending more rodents, saying they were paid a flat monthly salary.
He told HK01 that the delayed handling of the captured rats was due to a lack of manpower, with his team being cut from six workers to the current size of four.
