Friday, March 15, 2013

Report: NYC is now sterilizing rats

Every so often, at the right time, there seem to be more rats than humans around here. And, apparently, there's little to stop their fucking spawning.

Per this article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, "rats are remarkably fertile, sometimes birthing 12 pups per litter and as many as seven litters in a year."

The article goes on to cover how city officials are planning on curbing the rat population in the subways.

The Metropolitan Transport Authority has kick-started a pilot program to sterilize female rats. To do this, it is teaming up with Flagstaff (Ariz.)-based SenesTech, a company that invented ContraPest, a product that, when consumed orally by rats, accelerates egg loss and can cause infertility in days.

But!

The article is quick to note that the end goal isn't to completely get rid of the rats. That may actually make things worse.

Said SenesTech CEO Loretta Mayer: "The overall goal is to diminish rat populations — but not wipe them out entirely because that would simply cause an influx of new rats."

What do you think of the idea? Could anything possibly go wrong?

[Image via]
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13 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 15, 2013 at 12:19 PM

    I say kill em all and let Chuck E Cheese sort em out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 15, 2013 at 12:44 PM

    what happens to the RTHawk in TSPark if / when it eats some of those rats?

    I-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 15, 2013 at 12:56 PM

    @12:44 I think they are talking about using that stuff down in the subway tunnels.

    ReplyDelete
  4. EV GrieveMarch 15, 2013 at 1:05 PM

    Right. This is only in the subways. I added that to the post.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ken from Ken's KitchenMarch 15, 2013 at 2:24 PM

    I don't know about rats, but do you think it would work on the drunk green-shirted/hatted participants of the 3 day St Patrick's day pub crawl?

    Kidding!

    ReplyDelete
  6. argieMarch 15, 2013 at 3:33 PM

    Get ready for the sequel to "The Food of the Gods"! Starring Marjoe Gortner!

    ReplyDelete
  7. RyanAvenueAMarch 15, 2013 at 3:41 PM

    Terrifying. "Accelerated egg loss" sounds like dropping more eggs at one time, and if that happens during ovulation then that litter of a dozen could be 30 or 50 at once. This is going to cause a rat explosion.* Flame throwers remain one of the only effective defenses against rats.

    (* none of my theory has any sort of science behind it)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Roger_PawMarch 15, 2013 at 4:34 PM

    Anonymous 12:44, If Parks decides to use this, not to worry. The Red-tailed Hawk will then feast on pigeons, squirrels, mice, and voles, etc. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousMarch 15, 2013 at 4:48 PM

    Maybe chains can sub out the horsemeat for the rats. Should we bring it up with 7-11?

    ReplyDelete
  10. VH McKenzieMarch 16, 2013 at 10:10 AM

    I think I made this suggestion in the comments here over a year ago, when discussing the explosion of rats in TSP. Hmph.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousMarch 17, 2013 at 2:11 AM

    Did we learn nothing from the movie Mimic?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_(film)

    Do we seriously need some new version of a rat?

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousMarch 17, 2013 at 2:32 PM

    Or Jurassic Park? Somehow nature or will find a way.

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousMarch 25, 2013 at 12:53 PM

    Now Mandate it at McDonald's

    ReplyDelete

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