Monster rat measuring 19 inches making it bigger than a CAT is found on south coast amid ‘invasion’ fears
Exterminator Terry Walker caught the giant rodent in Poole, Dorset, as experts warn they could soon outnumber people by three to one in the UK
A RAT measuring a whopping 19 inches making it bigger than the average cat has been caught on the south coast fuelling fears that Britain is being invaded by the disease-carrying rodents.
Exterminator Terry Walker says the beast is the biggest he's ever seen in 20 years in the profession.
Terry caught the rat in the millionaires' playground of Sandbanks in Poole, Dorset – just yards from where the likes of former Spurs boss Harry Redknapp and his TV pundit son Jamie own properties.
Displaying the monster, he said: "You would struggle to find a pest controller who has found a bigger one.
"I'm on the professional forums and most of us would agree that’s a big one for the whole of the UK. It’s the biggest I’ve ever caught."
Experts say the rodents, which can gnaw through wood and electrics in people’s homes, are getting bigger because they have mutated to become resistant to shop-bought poisons.
And this winter the country could be overwhelmed as numbers top 200million.
Terry caught another monster rat measuring 16 inches at a restaurant near Poole High Street around the same time.
And the managing director of Poole-based TP Pest Control Services, says he has no doubt rats have increased in size in recent years.
Terry explained: "It comes down to a lot of things including refuse at the back of buildings, people feeding birds, foxes, badgers.
"Keeping chickens is also a definite contributing factor – basically the rats will go on to the bird tables, into the chicken coops and take their feed.
"My contracts for business premises are growing on a daily basis. We're finding that more and more people are having more and more issues."
The rat population stood at around 80million in 2013 – but it's now feared to be edging towards 200million.
Terrifyingly, researchers say the super rats could soon out-number humans by nearly three-to-one across Britain.
Scientists have been charting the super rat spread into new areas by monitoring their progress in 17 sample counties across the UK.
The rodents have been found to be spreading from rural areas to towns and cities.
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Some experts say a mountain of thousands of tons of potatoes is helping the rats flourish, as they gorge themselves on surplus stocks in farm silos.
Kevin Higgins, of the British Pest Control Association, said teams of exterminators often find the rodents lurking around potato stores.
And with some predicting the super rat population to double by the end of 2017, Kevin said: "It's driven by the availability of food. The more food, the more rodents it will attract."
John McNeice, director of Scottish Pest Control Services, said the colossal vermin are particularly partial to potatoes.
He said: "We see big rats in cold stores where they grow a very thick fur that can make them look even bigger.
"You might see a rat under a pallet that looks as big as a cat."
Reports of poison-resistant mutant rats in the south of England first began to appear in the 1990s and the problem has worsened in recent years.
The creatures pose a danger as they can carry Weil's disease in their urine which can cause organ failure and internal bleeding in humans.
Experts are now begging the licensing authorities to give a green light to new, stronger, poison to stop the UK being over-run.
But rodent poisons are controversial because of the risks to children, pets and wildlife.
Rats are also hard to kill with poisons because they scavenge.
The animals will only eat a small bit of something and wait – and if they don't get sick, they continue.
The most potent rat poisons are currently for professional use only and cannot be sold across shop counters to the general public.
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