This man smelled a rat

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Malaysian Man Named Best Rat Catcher

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A Malaysian man earned almost 3,000 ringgit (US$790) and the title of best rat catcher by killing 1,175 of the rodents in three months with a slingshot.

The council in the northern city of Kota Bahru offered residents 1 ringgit (US$0.26) for each rat they killed as part of an campaign to eradicate the vermin.

At the end of the three-month campaign, 43-year-old laborer Ismail Hamzah had presented the council with 1,175 rat carcasses - the vast majority of the 1,922 total handed in, the New Straits Times newspaper reported Friday.

Ismail was paid the bounty for each rat and a first prize bonus of 1,500 ringgit (US$395), the paper reported.

Ismail said he hunted rats and shot them with pebbles from a slingshot made from a block of wood and rubber from a wheel tube from his son's bicycle.