When & Where Should I Release a Wild Rat?

Congratulations on successfully trapping a wild rat in your home or building, but the hard work has only just begun. Sadly, rat-proofing your home is never a simple case of trapping a couple of rats and then releasing them somewhere else. In fact, trapping and releasing isn't recognized as the best method of rat removal or control, especially in older buildings with lots of damage and holes, and even more so when the rat infestation is a very large one. 

Trapping and releasing wild rats is a long process, usually involving the capture and release of just a couple of rats at a time. If you are dealing with a group of rats in your home that is a few hundred strong (which larger infestations can grow to, and beyond that point too), removing just five or so from the group every week is not going to put a stop to the problem. They will breed much quicker than you will get the chance to evict them, and it'll be a never-ending, expensive problem that will almost always come with much more damage than you'd anticipated. 

Regardless of whether or not you change your mind over trapping and releasing of rats, you should be aware that newly-released rats very rarely live for long, unless you release them close enough to your home that they can rejoin their old group … which, once again, doesn't help you at all. You'll just be wasting your own time and energy, as well as gas and other materials, just to give the rat a day trip. Releasing the animal further away from that means that it will start to find it harder to make its way home again, and the journey will take longer, too. The more obstacles that you can put in the path of the point of release and the property on which you trapped it, the longer and tougher it will be for the rat to make it back. It is recommended that you drive at least five miles from the point of capture, and try to ensure you have put wooded areas or a body of water between the two places. These things do not make it impossible for the rat to come back, but they do make it as difficult as possible. Wooded areas provide plenty of predators that could potentially stop the problem first, letting nature deal with the situation. Rats can swim very well, but will, once again, come across predators and problems when trying to complete the trek home. 

There isn't really a "good time" to release rats back into the wild. They are nocturnal animals, so will hunt, clean, build nests, breed and socialize during the night. There are also plenty of natural rat predators out during the night, too, making it difficult for the animal to survive. If the released rat has never even been in a rural environment before, it won't understand or know the new threats, including new predators. Eagles, owls, hawks, and coyotes are not commonly seen in more urban habitats. 

There are some rehabilitators who suggest releasing a trapped rat first thing in the morning. It will be tired and confused still, but will face fewer risks in terms of natural predators and could find a nesting/safe spot before nightfall. 



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