Rats | Stein: These giant rodents or nutria, as they're more accurately known, were first imported into Thailand about four years ago. Back then the Thai economy was still booming, and get rich quick schemes were all the rage. This one seemed a surefire winner. | 01.00.00.00 |
Stein with rat farmer | Overcome your natural revulsion, buy a pair of breeding rats, let them do what rats do best, and sell the offspring back at a huge and guaranteed profit. |
00.20 |
| Charnwit Chareonsuk was just one of the thousands of farmers who signed on. |
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Charnwit | Charnwit: I was sold five pairs of rats. Later on they bred nine babies. I sold them all. It was very promising so I decided to expand the farm. |
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Charnwit feeding rats | Stein: Charnwit was so sold on the idea he gave up his pigs and his chickens. Low maintenance rats, who eat a lot but rarely died seemed the answer to both his and many other farmer's prayers.
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01.06 |
Suthiporn Super: Ministry of Agriculture | Suthiporn: The scheme itself is very attractive. You know, with a pair of nutria, within a couple of years you can get at least 100 of them. With a pair of nutria you put and investment of 20,000 baht, and by the end of two or three years, you can get forty, fifty times that much. So it's very attractive to farmers. |
01.20 |
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Rat handler | Stein: The reason for all this optimism was the promise of a huge new fashion industry, the very latest in high fashion - the rat fur coat. |
01.49 |
Rat fur coat | There were grand visions that these fur coats would one day be exported to the rich in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. |
02.02 |
| But the industry has collapsed before it began. It seems the international market was not ready for the rat fur coat. |
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| The government delivered the final fatal blow. |
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Suthiporn | Suthirporn: At the moment the government position is that we are not going to support nutria farming and we want to discourage more... anymore nutria farming in future. |
02.21 |
Rats | Stein: The government's decision to ban the import and export of nutria has left farmers with tens of thousands of rats that no one seems to want, and they're not happy. |
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Rat farmers | In the town of Ratchaburi, outside the capital, Bangkok, farmers have gathered to demand the owner of this breeding farm honour her contract to buy back their rats. |
02.50 |
Sign
Super: | This sign says it's closed. One of the first breeding and processing factories built in Thailand, the owner has since fled. |
03.02 |
| Protesting farmers were told they had to take their rats home. That they were to care for them until government authorities came to collect them. |
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Rat farmers | Farmer: Where can I let them go? Back on the farm? Authority: Don't let them go. There was a big hole in the fence - about 200 have already got out. |
03.18
03.22 |
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Rat in garden | Stein: But already they are being let go. With his dreams ruined, Charnwit saw no other option. |
03.28 |
Charnwit | Charnwit: I think I let about one hundred go. I let them go because the breeding farm wouldn't pay me for them. |
03.34 |
Rat hunting | Stein: That's exactly what the authorities are terrified of. The local rat patrol is on the hunt for the runaway rodents. | 03.48 |
| In Thailand's rural areas there is now a real threat of major environmental damage. Because these huge rats can do two things excessively well - eat and breed. |
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| For poor Buddhist farmers, uneasy about killing animals, letting them go seems the easiest solution to their problems. At the Ratchaburi rat farm the extent of the problem is revealed. |
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| Caretaker: You should feed them. If you don't have food, just give them water. |
04.20 |
Policeman | Stein: The local police officer guarding place agreed to let us in. With the owner gone, her rats were left to starve to death. |
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Rats in pens | Stein: Many rats had bee left in their pens. Others let loose to wander the grounds of the farm had stripped the place bare. |
04.42 |
| A clean-up operation had begun. Any dead rats were being burnt to prevent the spread of disease. |
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| While farmers at the front were demanding their money back, local villagers were plundering the survivors out the back. These rats may not end up gracing the backs of supermodels, but at least they won't be wasted. |
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Villager | Villager: When they get bigger, I'll eat them. Are any of them bigger than that? |
05.14 |
ENDS |
| 05.30 |