How some cities became rat-free zones

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190517-how-these-cities-became-rat-free-zones

by tomohawk • 7 years ago

92 75 7 years ago

bbc.com

781• 7 years ago

Disgusting animal abuse... There is place for everybody in our cities.

Meanwhile in more civilized places:

Fat rat stuck in manhole rescued by firefighters in Germany

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/27/fat-rat-stuck-...

blattimwind• 7 years ago

Every German city has a program to deploy rat poision once or twice per year

forgotmypw5• 7 years ago

Rat poison that travels and ends up in our own air, food, and water, and is just as effective on us as it is on them.

spinach• 7 years ago

"There is a place for everybody in our cities"

You mean once we destroyed their habitat anyways? All houses, buildings, roads, factories, etc, were all habitats to animals, insects, vegetation, etc, and then they were displaced or killed when the land was cleared for construction. But luckily for us, that was before we moved in or places we don't have to see it.

All the items you use are mined and manufactured in buildings or places that destroyed other life on the planet, and then will destroy more once disposed of again.

This empathy for rats seems completely misplaced.

dang• 7 years ago

Please don't post take HN threads further into flamewar, no matter how much you love animals.

Nationalistic flamebait is particularly unwelcome here, so no more of that please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

harimau7773• 7 years ago

Generally I think that we should manage animals in the most humane way possible (e.g. we likely cannot have lions roaming around cities but that doesn't mean we should just wipe them out).

However, it seems like rodents are a difficult case: As I understand it the basic evolutionary strategy for most rodents is "breed prolifically in order to offset a very high mortality rate". In that case it seems like extermination is effectively the "natural" way to manage them. I don't think it would be possible to round up rats and put them in shelters the way that we do stray dogs.

What alternative method of managing rodent populations would you advocate?

behringer• 7 years ago

Abstinence

harimau7773• 7 years ago

Not gonna lie, this post made my day. Well done sir/madame!

forgotmypw5• 7 years ago

Allowing them to live in our presence and not trying to kill them? Rats are largely scavengers, their involvement in, e.g. black plague, has been disproven. If you don't leave food out and available, they won't eat it. In many countries around the world people live in harmony with other animals and don't try to wipe them out just because they are in the same space. Not to mention the amount of toxic poisons that end up harming us more than the rats that we are dumping int our own habitat to try to kill the rats.

It's not much different than insects. We've chosen a few "pest" insects as the scapegoat/enemy and have bent over backwards trying to exterminate them. As a result, we've decimated all insect populations as collateral damage, severely damaging our own habitat, environment, and ecosystem, and again, poisoning ourselves in the process. Because... Everyone eats insects, and once there are no insects, there's nothing for them to eat!

Same thing with bacteria. We've decided that sterility is the way to go, and gone on a mad spree trying to kill all bacteria, forgetting that bacteria is how we digest food, so again, poisoning ourselves and damaging our own health, threatening ourselves in the process.

These are all living organisms that we are closely related to, sharing the same environment as us, and anything we do to them comes back to us.

Not only that, but our bodies are tuned over millions of years to coexist with them, and a sterile environment with all kinds of synthetic poisons in it, once again, fucks us up.

There is also the issue that computers and AIs are learning from us the way children learn from their parents, and will one day treat us the same way that we treat the "lower" species.

harimau7773• 7 years ago

I definitely agree that trying to just eliminate nature from our cities is going to have negative consequences. And from what I understand, the mechanisms behind many of the ways we kill rodents (e.g. anticoagulant poison and sticky paper) seem inhumane.

I'll have to look into if there have been studies on more systemic approaches to managing animal populations. Things like changing how/where food waste is stored.

Would you oppose lethal approaches to rodent control if they were more limited and directed? For example, a warehouse getting a cat or setting out some mouse traps.

totalZero• 7 years ago

Your assertion that rats weren't involved in the spread of the black plague is misleading.

Rats do spread disease. Some experts believe they were not the vector for the black plague, but there are several other (many of which are quite recent) outbreaks where rats have unquestionably spread disease.

Take a look for yourself:

https://www.cdc.gov/rodents/diseases/direct.html

Personally I believe we should preserve human health over rat health, and a good way of doing that is to exterminate rats.

darkpuma2• 7 years ago

"It's not much different than insects. We've chosen a few "pest" insects as the scapegoat/enemy and have bent over backwards trying to exterminate them. As a result, we've decimated all insect populations as collateral damage, severely damaging our own habitat, environment, and ecosystem, and again, poisoning ourselves in the process. Because... Everyone eats insects, and once there are no insects, there's nothing for them to eat!"

I kindly invite you to rent a room at the shittiest motel in town and learn to live and let live with bed bugs.

Tsubasachan• 7 years ago

I am amazed at how efficient rats are. I put a garbage bag in my shed and 3 days later the only thing that was left was the plastic.

The government in their infinite wisdom hatched out a scheme were everyone has to pay per kilogram of produced waste so a lot of people were just dumping their trash. It was a 24/7 buffet for rats. Then, as only a country that has literally too much money can do, they sent out inspectors on to the streets to sift through the bags and fine people.

sandworm1012• 7 years ago

We have lions roaming around my city. That you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. Large predators can and do coexist with humans in relatively urban environments.

https://www.tricitynews.com/news/cougar-warning-issued-to-be...

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/coquitlam-cougar-sighting-residents-ad...

https://www.nsnews.com/news/north-van-cougar-sightings-promp...

Lions are everywhere in some parts of Vancouver. It is rare that one must actually be put down. We can get along.

Best thing for keeping everyone alive:

https://www.mec.ca/en/product/4007-144/Bear-Bangers-%286-Pac...

solipsism• 7 years ago

Nonsense. In the past few months a hiker was killed, a young child attacked, and multiple other people were attacked. We can't "get along". The best thing for both cougars and humans is to stay out of each other's way.

animal531• 7 years ago

He also perhaps meant actual lions, not cougars. An actual lion also weighs roughly twice as much as a cougar and isn't solitary and/or shy around humans.

Even with cougars there are some problems, with actual lions they would need to be constantly tracked, sedated and relocated.

tzs2• 7 years ago

I don't think we should lump all rodents together. Squirrels, for instance, can reasonably be kept out of our houses and buildings, especially out of the living areas. Even if one finds a way into an attic or crawlspace that you forgot to squirrel proof, it is going to be going out to forage, and so hawks, cats, dogs, and cars keep the population down.

Urban squirrels for the most part live beside us, where as rats and mice live with us, and so the later are much more likely to need to be managed.

geowwy• 7 years ago

It's worth mentioning that cities traditionally were shared with free-roaming cats and dogs. It's only recently that we've taken them off the streets.

I'm often dismissed as some kind of a troll for advocating the reintroduction of street animals in my local town. But cats and dogs were instrumental in the development of civilisation. They control vermin, they deter wild animals, they reduce food waste, they act as an alert against violent antisocial behaviour.

We need to get rid of the idea that cities belong only to humans. Many animals belong in city ecosystems.

maeln3• 7 years ago

In Turkey, having free roaming cats and dogs is still very much part of the culture, and I hope it never goes away.

People take care of them, and the government too, so you will almost never see a cat/dog aggressive towards human or very sick.

mikro2nd• 7 years ago

In principle I'd agree, but there is one small problem. They shit everywhere, and that becomes a problem in its own right.

iirc Victorian London had to find a way to dispose of something like 4 tons of horseshit a day. And horseshit is easy -- it makes brilliant compost. Cat and dog shit less so. Much less.

xhgdvjky• 7 years ago

just because that was the stable state doesn't mean it is the only stable state

pjc50• 7 years ago

Cats also carry disease (toxoplasmosis), dogs in many parts of the world may carry rabies.

Mind you I'm in favour of one type of suburban animal: birds. Except feral pigeons. Also tend to be killed in large numbers by outdoor cats and window collisions.

marcosdumay• 7 years ago

There are many other species able to control vermin, we don't have to replace them on all the ecosystems we touch.

ficklepickle2• 7 years ago

In the Morrocan cities I visited, there were no rats due to a large feral cat population.

Some of the cats had health problems, which was sad. I'd rather have cats than rats, but cats aren't a solution on their own.

I've read that birth control hormones work well for controlling rat populations. Dose their food supply consistently, and they die off without reproducing.

netcan• 7 years ago

It's not really possible to manage even stray/feral dogs and cats that way, if it has gotten much beyond a "stray" pets problem.

Dogs and cats, given favourable conditions, can breed up and affect an ecosystem as major predators do.

Australia, for example, has cat & dog problems on a continent-scale. Dogs are hybridising with displacing the semi-native dingos, and that basically means a totally new top predator. Cats are the number or or two threats to several vulnerable and endangered species (eg fairy penguins, in the south), and have already caused multiple extirpations.

At some point, managing these animals can't be done with a "pets" mentality. They are just feral animals that are related to pets.

There's not going to be shelters for I teoduced foxes or weasels.

dominotw2• 7 years ago

Fuck, I live in rat heaven- chicago. One sneaked into my bedroom last polar votex. Never knew my sweetest gentle cat had such vicious killer instinct. Flew straight out from the kitchen table and bit its neck and then proceeded to torment the poor thing for next 1/2 hr before I rescued the rat, picked it up with towels(blood still dripping) and threw it in garbage bin outside.

I decided that night to move the fuck out of chicago and will be moving out end of this year.

selectodude2• 7 years ago

I’m curious where you plan to live that doesn’t have any rats.

Iv• 7 years ago

I lived in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo. Never saw any rat where humans would go. I think I spot mice in Paris in the streets once.

dominotw2• 7 years ago

There is difference between having 'any rats' and being rat capital of usa[1]. I see them all time, everywhere here.

1.http://mentalfloss.com/article/561029/most-rat-infested-citi...

notatoad• 7 years ago

Alberta?

xvedejas• 7 years ago

Move to a city where coyotes live? I live in a city near a large park and have never seen a rat, but I do hear coyotes fairly often. I think these are related.

Wowfunhappy• 7 years ago

Apparently, they can go to Alberta...

thrower123• 7 years ago

If you have a varmint problem of some type, I would highly recommend using spring traps over putting out DCON or other poison. If you care about killing them kindly, a big snap that crushes their skull or breaks their neck is better than slowly dying of poison.

More importantly, if they die in your trap, you know where they are and can clean them up easily. There are few things more disgusting than finding a rat or a squirrel that has crawled off into some tight space to die, and sat there long enough in the heat for the flies and maggots to get at the corpse

koolba• 7 years ago

Also having dead rats or mice rotting away in a hidden corner literally stinks.

Jill_the_Pill• 7 years ago

Also, have a thought for the animals up the food chain, poisoned by poisoned rats and mice.

astazangasta• 7 years ago

This LRB bit on rats is a good read:

‘Rats that survive to the age of four are the wisest and the most cynical beasts on earth,’ an exterminator told Mitchell sixty years ago. ‘A trap means nothing to them, no matter how skilfully set. They just kick it around until it snaps; then they eat the bait. And they can detect poisoned bait a yard off. I believe some of them can read.’

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n06/sean-wilsey/some-of-them-can-r...

lostlogin2• 7 years ago

Farms closest to the border are checked twice a year and adjacent sites once. It sounds like a lot, says Merrill

That sounds like very little, and yet they have proven results. I know people who run traps and check/reset them weekly over 10+km lines. That sounds like a lot, and yet it’s hardly denting the population. Unfortunately it’s 1080 poison that is needed. New Zealand has a vague goal of becoming pest free. This is going to be hard, and cats don’t fit with this. Perhaps dogs don’t either?

goodcanadian• 7 years ago

Rats can't survive outside in the winter in Alberta (or Saskatchewan). They need human buildings. The distances between farmsteads are large, at least from a rat's point of view. There is therefore a relatively large time constant between jumps from one farm to the next. Checking a couple of times per year is usually sufficient.

oeuviz• 7 years ago

Another recent rodent killing article can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20019487

How some cities became rat-free zones

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