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Rat Island

In the late 18th century, Hawadax Island in the Aleutian chain saw a major change.  Following a Japanese shipwreck, this remote, then-Russian island in western Alaska saw its first encounter with rats, who fled the ship and managed to find refuge on the island.  Rats don’t usually swim, but it’s well known that they can, if they have to, and they had to. Hawadax Island is one of the smaller Aleutians, about ten square miles, populated only by seabirds.  The rats found something to eat when they found the birds, pilfering their eggs, and eating the birds themselves.  Once full of birds, by 1780, Hawadax Island was completely dominated by rats. In 1827, Russian sea captain Fyodor Petrovich Litke renamed Hawadax Island, which gets its name from the Aleut word for welcome , to something a little more descriptive: Rat Island. Rat Island has been described as eerily quiet.  Sailing in the Aleutians, you would normally expect to hear plenty of bird calls when you’re near land.  Rat

Jack Black: Rat Catcher to the Queen

Jack Black, Rat Catcher to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria Successful people are often the ones who find ways to capitalize on the problems of the day.  Another good way is to present yourself as some kind of an authority on a problem, even if you have to make up your credentials yourself.  Jack Black is a man who did both. About a century and a half before “School of Rock” was released in theaters, another man named Jack Black, this one from Battersea, England, decided to make himself useful.  England had a rat problem.  The plague-bearing black rat was being driven out of England, but the unwelcome news was that the large, gray Norway rat was what was driving it out, overrunning the cities, and the nation despaired for a solution.  Black stepped forth, presenting himself as the Queen’s official rat-catcher.  This was not an official title, since Queen Victoria never asked him to take on the job, but it certainly lent an air of authority to his work.  What also helped to lend autho