Idaho’s Treasure Valley fights to avoid a ‘rat apocalypse’

First she saw the eyes, then the ears, then the tail.

Jane Rohling had lived in Eagle, Idaho, for 20 years before she saw her first rat. She’d lived there 20 years and 10 seconds before she saw her second, third, fourth and fifth.

Drawn to the window by the flash of fur, she stopped when she saw her bird feeder surrounded by them — heavy-bodied brown rodents trailed by tapered, hairless tails.

That was in 2022. Afterward Rohling, who spent a 45-year career in wildlife education, “went down a rabbit hole” on rats.

She spends four or more hours a day researching, reporting and answering questions from residents about the burgeoning infestation, which caught the Treasure Valley flat-footed over the past half-decade and has spread steadily.

Rohling has shaped a huge aspect of her retireme