Hong Kong gov’t suspends rodent control contractor for keeping captured rats overnight

Hong Kong authorities have suspended a rodent control contractor after workers were found to be keeping captured rats overnight instead of sending them to be disposed of.

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) said last week that it had issued a “notice of blatant default” – handed out for “serious defaults in the course of service delivery” – to a rodent control contract firm.

The contractor did not properly store rat cages and failed to “humanely” dispose of the rats on the same day they were captured.

A supervisor in charge was also suspended from work, the statement added.

The department said some workers did not follow procedures to transfer the rat cages to designated locations “for the sake of convenience.”

“The 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 contract firms to step up training for workers, the department added.

The suspension came after local media outlet HK01 reported that a rodent control contractor operating in Kwai Chung had stored rat cages on a slope near Shek Lei Adventure Playground overnight and fed the captured rodents with sliced apples and sweet potato.

A site supervisor told the media outlet that workers sometimes “forgot” to take the captured rodents to designated waste collection points, where the rats were to be drowned in bleach and water. The supervisor said they were not raising the captured animals.

The supervisor also denied that they could earn bonuses for turning in more rodents, saying they were paid a flat monthly wage.

He told HK01 that the delayed handling of captured rats was due to a manpower shortage, with his team being cut from six workers to the current size of four.