200 miles off the coast of Alaska, there's an island.

It's called St. Paul Island, and it's about the size of Disney World.

There are no trees there. It's more like a tundra with

just kind of a few cliffs. You can see the ocean from just about every point. About 400 people

live on St. Paul. It's a small fishing community, mostly made up of members of the Aleut tribe.

There's one K through 12 school.

There are no restaurants, but there is a tavern where local bands will play on the weekends

and people will dance until early in the morning.

It's this small, tightly knit community just floating in the middle of the Bering Sea.

But last summer, an unwelcome visitor showed up on St. Paul Island.

It was a June day. Two people were sitting outside their apartment when they saw the visitor from afar, scurrying

underneath a staircase.

A rat.

So if you live in a city or pretty much anywhere in the mainland DOS, this might be a common

site for you, possibly even a daily occurrence.

But on St. Paul, seeing one single rat isn't just uncommon.

It's an island-wide emergency.

I'm Johanna Mayer, and this is Atlas Obscira, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we head to St. Paul to join a rat strike team,

fighting to save their little island from, oh, you know, just total ecological collapse.

After this.

Music after this. Okay, here is an unpopular opinion.

...