On Rats, Refuse, and Recycling

Excerpt

They say that no one is more than a few feet away from a rat, in town or country. In the UK, the distance must be shrinking year by year. The latest National Rodent Survey reveals that, between the reporting years 1998/1999 and 2004/2005, the increase in numbers was three times higher for rats (39%) than for mice (12.5%).1 These are not pets (white rats) but the brown rat, or Rattus norvegicus. The survey also counts “summer rats,” up by 69%, not because this is a different species but because of a concern that the seasonal pattern of R. norvegicus sightings has changed. Improved standards of human living do not appear to be affecting rat populations in the UK for the better, and a similar picture has been described for Baltimore, MD, where a rat population of 48,420 was estimated in 2004, this being little changed from half a century earlier.2 …