Annals of intrepid entrepreneurship and adventure vacationing: “rat tours” in NYC
Tourists are flocking to the Big Apple to check out its exploding rat population — and tour guides are tailoring excursions to introduce them to the city’s most beady-eyed natives.
Kenny Bollwerk maps out late-night rat routes near Rockefeller Center and in Flushing and Sunnyside, Queens.
Luke Miller, owner of Real New York Tours, adds a stop to Columbus Park near Chinatown for tourists with a yen for vermin. …
Such fascination may have begun seven years ago when New York City’s most famous rodent, the Pizza Rat, drew 12 million viewers to an online video of it trekking down subway stairs.
Why are there so many rats in New York? Like many other elements of life these days, it seems to be a result – a bonus, let’s say – of the pandemic lockdown rules. Thanks, health authorities! In the case of the rats, the cause seems to have been the proliferation of outdoor dining without a great deal of forethought about rat amelioration.
But even without the encouragement afforded by outdoor dining, no wonder rats were fairly ubiquitous even before the present surge:
[New York City’s] rat population is dominated by the brown rat (also known as the Norway rat). The average adult body weight is 350 grams (12 oz) in males and about 250 grams (8.8 oz) in females. The adult rat can squeeze through holes or gaps the size of a quarter (0.955 inches), jump a horizontal distance of up to 4 feet (1.2 m) (or vertically from a flat surface to 3 feet (0.91 m)), survive a fall from a height of almost 40 feet (12 m), and tread water for three days.
For much of my early lifetime, a rat civil war was going on in New York City. Who knew?:
As recently as 1944, two distinct species were prevalent: the brown rat (Norway rat) and the black rat (ship rat, roof rat). Over the next few decades, the more aggressive brown variety displaced the black rats, typically by attacking and killing them, but also by outcompeting them for food and shelter. By 2014, the city’s rat population was dominated by the brown rat.
A similar war had occurred in Europe quite some time ago:
Both rat species once coexisted with each other in human dwellings by filling different niches; black rats are arboreal, preferring dry, thatched roofs and attics, while brown rats are mainly burrowers, seeking cool ground levels and basements.
Black rats were the first to travel from Asia to Europe in significant numbers. They most likely traveled on trade ships from India to Egypt around 3000 BC…
Over a millennium after black rats, brown rats arrived in Europe. In 1727 AD, an enormous number of brown rats left eastern Asia for Europe. Although small groups of brown rats probably already lived in Europe, there had never been a mass exodus like this: Witnesses saw thousands of brown rats swim across the Volga, the largest European river, as they headed westward across Russia. Some speculate that an earthquake caused this migration, but it remains a mystery. Reaching England in the late 1720s, their arrival from the East was misattributed to passage on Norwegian ships and so they were labeled Rattus norvegicus.
Brown rats quickly spread throughout Europe, displacing the black rat, and entrenching themselves inseparably with the European lifestyle by 1800. Favorable factors helped brown rats displace black rats. The Great Fire of London in 1666 caused previously wooden buildings and thatched roofs, perfect for black rats, to be replaced by lead, tile, and brick. Burrowing brown rats could still dig into and around these new buildings, but black rats lost their upper-story lodgings. Similar housing updates were occurring throughout Europe. This, combined with brown rats’ physiological advantages over black rats, helped clinch the victory. While black rats weigh around half a pound, brown rats weigh nearly one pound, with records of 3.5 pounds. Brown rats can also survive harsh weather and eat nearly anything. While black rats are still dominant in the tropics today, brown rats are now found nearly worldwide thanks to their travels with humans.
That anecdote about the mass rat migration in 1727 seems like a tall tale, but I’ve seen several references to it and I suppose it might be true. Weird.
As noted, the Norway (brown) rat has nothing to do with Norway, although it exists there as it does everywhere on earth except Antarctica and Alberta, Canada.
Alberta, Canada? you ask. What’s so special about Alberta?
This:
Alberta, Canada, is the largest rat-free populated area in the world. Rat invasions of Alberta were stopped and rats were eliminated by very aggressive government rat control measures, starting during the 1950s.
The only species of Rattus that is capable of surviving the climate of Alberta is the brown rat, which can only survive in the prairie region of the province, and even then must overwinter in buildings. Although it is a major agricultural area, Alberta is far from any seaport and only a portion of its eastern boundary with Saskatchewan provides a favorable entry route for rats. Brown rats cannot survive in the wild boreal forest to the north, the Rocky Mountains to the west, nor can they safely cross the semiarid High Plains of Montana to the south. The first brown rat did not reach Alberta until 1950, and in 1951, the province launched a rat-control program that included shooting, poisoning, and gassing rats, and bulldozing, burning down, and blowing up rat-infested buildings. The effort was backed by legislation that required every person and every municipality to destroy and prevent the establishment of designated pests. If they failed, the provincial government could carry out the necessary measures and charge the costs to the landowner or municipality…
By 1960, the number of rat infestations in Alberta had dropped to below 200 per year. In 2002, the province finally recorded its first year with zero rat infestations, and from 2002 to 2007 there were only two infestations found. After an infestation of rats in the Medicine Hat landfill was found in 2012, the province’s rat-free status was questioned, but provincial government rat control specialists brought in excavating machinery, dug out, shot, and poisoned 147 rats in the landfill, and no live rats were found thereafter. In 2013, the number of rat infestations in Alberta dropped to zero again. Alberta defines an infestation as two or more rats found at the same location, since a single rat cannot reproduce. About a dozen single rats enter Alberta in an average year and are killed by provincial rat control specialists before they can reproduce.
Only zoos, universities, and research institutes are allowed to keep caged rats in Alberta, and possession of unlicensed rats (including pet rats) by anyone else is punishable by a penalty of up to $5,000 or up to 60 days in jail. The adjacent and similarly landlocked province of Saskatchewan initiated a rat control program in 1972, and has managed to reduce the number of rats in the province substantially, although they have not been eliminated. The Saskatchewan rat control program has considerably reduced the number of rats trying to enter Alberta.
As I said—war, in this case not a rat civil war but an interspecies conflict. In 2017, when I did much of the research for this post (large portions of which existed in draft until now, minus the introduction about New York), New Zealand was about to embark on a similar endeavor under circumstances somewhat less favorable to human victory. The plan is to eliminate rats and several other types of vermin by 2050; here’s an interesting update on how it’s going.
I cannot stand rats, not even pet rats. I’ve seen huge ones in the NY subways near the tracks, and that was long before COVID. I’ve seen them rooting around in New England near various buildings. The Eastern ones are brown rats, but in California I’ve seen the black variety. Back when I was married and we used to visit my then-husband’s parents in California and swim in their pool, he was kind enough to stay mum about the fact that once or twice he had found a drowned rat in the pool and quietly removed it before I saw it because he knew I’d probably never go in that pool again if he were to tell me about it in real time (I only learned much later; he told me after the house was sold). And when I originally did the research for this post, I had just experienced a startling late-night encounter with a rat in a house in California. I may or may not tell that tale sometime.
The Rolling Stones had some thoughts on this back in 1978.
‘Shattered’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Y5J0ka4_k
Isn’t Alberta the most conservative province in Canada?
Years ago when I was sleeping outside by a stream, I dreamt that my cat was licking my face. In reality, a rather large rat was standing on his hind legs on my forehead with his tail hitting my nose as he desperately tried to reach the bag of food that I had tied on a pole above my head. I think I broke the record for the rat toss when I woke up and realized what was going on.
The moral of the story is never store your food near where you sleep.
Gregory Harper:
ARGHHH! Good thing your name isn’t Winston Smith.
I was reminded of Part One of Camus’ La Peste, which describes the sudden appearance of dead and dying rats on the streets of Oran as the first sign of bubonic plague in the city. If huxley thinks his French is up to it, he could try reading the first 20 pages or so.
Next up, Bubonic Plague tours.
I do not like New Zealand’s policy of eradicating all predators. It’s evil. But it doesn’t surprise me. That’s how Kiwis roll.
Well there you have it, systemic racism directed against black rats.
Kiwis = Eloi
“the province launched a rat-control program that included shooting, poisoning, and gassing rats, and bulldozing, burning down, and blowing up rat-infested buildings”
About 5000 years ago, civilizations started to arise around agricultural lands. Staples like wheat started being stored in large granaries. The granaries attracted rats.
Humans cannot hunt rats effectively by traditional methods. Today we have poisons. Humans could only trap them back at the dawn of civilization, which was difficult, and only mildly effective against large infestations.
So they asked themselves, “is there a creature that hunts rats?” Why, yes there is! So cats were domesticated, which is why you have your little furball purring on your couch.
Large cities with persistent rat infestations should criminalize (with mild penalties) the molestation of stray or feral cats. Let ’em breed, run around, whatever, so long as they are keeping the population of rats down.
Alternatively, breed large numbers of non-venomous snakes and release them into the alleyways. Many farmers allow snakes to stay in or under their barns so long as they are not venomous and not scaring the livestock. Most humans have a strong natural aversion to snakes, so cats are probably the better alternative.
Rats are a 5 millennia old problem, and a seriously deadly one. The Black Death killed one in three people in Europe in the 1300s, postponing the Renaissance by 100 years or more. The Plague was spread by fleas on rats.
Erronius
“So cats were domesticated . . .”
Those of us who are owned by cats know that Felis catus domesticated Homo sapiens rather than the other way around.
“rat tours” in NYC…
Entirely apropos.
Perhaps only eclipsed by San Francisco’s human degradation.
“rat tours” in NYC… Perhaps only eclipsed by San Francisco’s human degradation
Hey, San Fran is trying to control its rat problem with contraception:
“The problem has gotten worse since the pandemic started. The city’s recreation and parks department is using what many people refer to as rat birth control. The liquid contraceptive, called ContraPest, is put out in city parks. It was developed by a company in Arizona called Senestech. The company’s chief strategy officer, Nicole Williams, says the contraceptive contains two active ingredients that helps disrupt the rats’ ability to reproduce. . . . Williams tells the story of how this contraceptive approach came to be as a solution for pest control. It turns out two women scientists were trying to figure out a way to create menopause in rats in order for the rats to be sold to drug companies for lab testing on menopausal drugs.”
Yeah, the article is from 2022, but who knows, the idea might work in NYC too:
https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-using-contraceptive-to-control-thriving-rat-population
My cousin in Montana goes to the local Humane Society to get feral cats. Her feral cats live in her horse barn and earn their keep by killing rats. My cousin tells me that she keeps food out for the cats, as the cats will kill rats regardless of their state of hunger.
Regarding birth control for rats, I recall hearing in the late ’60s from a Ph.D. biologist that Oklahoma City had a birth control program for rats, IIRC, it used sterile rat males.
In Chicago, in the hey day of the Chicago stockyards there were huge rats and at one time people (usually men) were allowed in and could shoot them with .22 rifles.
That was long ago. Now the shooting is in the streets.
I found a USDA Technical Bulletin on rat sterilization from 1972, several years after I heard about it. USDA Technical Bulletin # 1455: Potential Role of Sterilization for Suppressing Rat Populations: A Theoretical Appraisal (1972)
PA+Cat,
Contraception is a great idea, and seems like it could be adapted for the suburban deer population (the rats of suburbia).
Mike K,
You can still get .22LR shot shells, at least when they are in stock. Some used to call them “rat shot” shells. I presume your aim doesn’t have to be as precise. Short range to be sure.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/100204184?pid=178005
You can click on the shell picture for a better look.
Plus they are not likely to penetrate wooden boards, as standard .22LR rounds would.
Strange that this subject would come up right now — I was just told, recently (and have confirmed it) that Pope Gregory IX, in the early half of the 13th C. believed cats were associated with Satan and pretty much declared a holy war against them. They were widely exterminated.
Gregory also instituted that
venerablevenal institution we all know as “The Inquisition”, which led to Witch Hunting. And, since cats were the “familiars” of Witches, many of them were killed, too, over the subsequent century and more…It’s not a huge stretch to wonder if the entire Black Death, which was passed on by fleas on rats, could not be directly attributed to this 100+ year war on cats.
For a personal experience, my stepfather redid the windows in my mother’s house. In one case, he tore out the window but did not get around to replacing it for a couple months… meanwhile, it was boarded over and (mostly) sealed.
There was a Palmetto tree outside whose roots were the home of some rats. When it was torn down, the rats were relatively unhappy (there was a wonderful cat, however, so they did not get far).
One, however, got into the house via a small uncovered segment of wall. the layout of the house had a “Florida” room connected to a living room (there the window was). The living room connected to a dining room, and that dining room split off to the kitchen on one side and a small hallway to the bathroom and the two bedrooms.
Peeps were sitting in the dining room talking, and I went to the kitchen for some reason. Stopped at the doorway to say something, and, out of the corner of my eye, between the wall and a china cabinet, was a shadow that had no business there. Looked close, and it was, indeed, a rat.
Well, we took some of the table leaves from the dining table and closed off the kitchen and the bedroom halls.
Made the mistake of leaving about 3/4ths of inch or less between the leaves blocking off the living room from the dining room.
We armed ourselves (I had a yardstick) and pulled the china cabinet away from the wall. The rat dropped to the floor and voooooom vooooooom voooooom was through that small niche we’d accidentally left it.
Some things to note at this point:
1 — that sucker was FAAAAAST. Anytime you see rats in a movie or TV show, those bastards are on Quaaludes.
2 — those little bastards are jelly balloons made of silicone. That thing was easily two inches across but it had zero hesitation getting through that small opening.
So, it’s now in the living room, and we know, at least, where it is trying to get to… the small hole in the wall beneath the window.
So, we seal it up better this time, closing off both openings to the LR with the table leaves, and slowly move furniture out of the room except for the area in the corner where we know it is.
So, the room is pretty barren, now, no furniture except the thing the rat is hiding behind.
So someone grabs that, and pulls it away, and, as expected, the rat goes for the hole. Now, even expecting how fast it was, it still surprised me, but it lept for the hole, and missed, and fell back down to the floor.
MY TURN!! I swung the yardstick like a driver and whacked that little bastard over against the wall, onto a stone flagging next to the fireplace (for firewood). My mother ran over with a hard rubber mallet and *crunch* no more rattus.
We left it there for my stepfather to deal with when he got back from where ever he’d gone. 😀
And thus ended the night’s adventures, as we moved the furniture back into place and also did a little bit to seal off the hole in question temporarily, in case the late furry thing had any friends outside.
Oh, and the window treatment was finished posthaste. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL…
OBloody:
Rats give cats a wide berth, but cats are not good ratcatchers or ratkillers. See this.
You and your mother are far braver than I, however.
Gregory also instituted that venerable venal institution we all know as “The Inquisition”
==
There were Inquisitions, which tended to be more procedurally conscientious than ordinary courts. “The Inquisition” with the definite article was founded in Spain in 1478. It existed formally until 1834 but was not very active after 1530.
Now gods, stand up for…RATS!!”
“The Rat That Wires Schools to the Web”—
https://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0812/081297.home.home.1.html
I should have remembered the PBS episode titled “Plague at the Golden Gate” earlier last night. It’s about the outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco in 1900–1904. It was first aired in May 2022 but can still be watched as a 2-hour video here: https://www.pbs.org/video/plague-at-the-golden-gate-dhdrto/
There’s a short (less than 2 minutes) video about the techniques used in San Francisco’s war on the rats that carried the fleas which spread the plague:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ux1M9w-NXQ&ab_channel=AmericanExperience%7CPBS
Some years ago we spent a few days in College Park, Maryland. After the first day or two we realized in astonishment that the city’s downtown was utterly overrun by brazen, fearless, enormous rats. They were everywhere in broad daylight, tunneling through the landscaping outside banks and restaurants, scrambling across sidewalks, and completely unafraid of passersby. Residents were apparently used to them and didn’t appear to notice, and no one seemed to be making any visible efforts to control them — but it made us think more than twice about using outdoor restaurant dining areas or lingering on benches!
All the construction in NYC has also contributed to the rat explosion. The East 23rd Station (Manhattan) of the NJ PATH train platforms used to be loaded with rats until they finally got rid of them through an aggressive campaign with rate poison boxes. If you want to control or severely reduce the rat populations the best thing are snakes (however few people would be amenable to that). Like you, I cannot stand rats (and mice) even the pet or lab ones. On Amsterdam Avenue and West 111th Street one block away from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was a spot we used to call “Rat Corner” because on sunny days you could see several rats just sunning themselves and completely unafraid of people – as if they owned the corner (which they did).
PA+Cat, that was a good video on SF rats at the turn of the previous century.
Rooster Cogburn knew how to handle a rat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5wxqFQj76U
}}} OBloody:
Rats give cats a wide berth, but cats are not good ratcatchers or ratkillers. See this.
You and your mother are far braver than I, however.
I believe it does depend very much on the cat. Some cats seem to be much more prone towards hunting rodents and other vermin — snakes, etc… The cat my mother had was a grey tabby named “Fat Cat”, but he was bulky, not “fat”. Big cat, probably 20 lbs, all muscle — very top of the walk in the neighborhood… Smart, too. My stepfather’s friends thought their dogs could easily take him… so he would retreat under a car and wait for the dog to come sniffing. “MREEEOWRR!!” and the dog was no longer interested in him. 😀
Could not keep a collar on him… one day I’m looking at him and he’s got a collar on. I went over to look. What he had was a small grass/glass snake (?… shiny dark blue-black, about a cm thick) in his mouth, and the rest of the snake was wrapped around his neck, just like a collar…
I recall being on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach and seeing a cat that had a rodent trapped (it kept putting its paw on the little monster’s tail to stop it from running away, but kept lifting it, then pouncing on it when it attempted to flee).
Then there is THIS (warning, rat running around, so, you might not want to watch, but others will be amused)
Russian Rat vs. Cats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPK_ij0llc8
THEY don’t acquit themselves very well in the Feline-v-Rattus military field.
}}} You and your mother are far braver than I, however.
Meh. Everyone has a phobia, I think.
My mother reacted to spiders like you do rats.
My own peeve is heights. I see peeps in movies near (much less ON!) the edge of a building and part of my brain is literally screaming “BACK AWAY!! GET BACK, DAMMITTTT!!!” 😀
There are scenes in The Matrix Resurrections and Alita: Battle Angel (you can likely guess which ones) that drive me nuts. It’s not “close your eyes”, but it’s aaaannngggg!! mentally.
I suspect I know the personal event that caused it, but not sure of it.
Plus they are not likely to penetrate wooden boards, as standard .22LR rounds would.
I think I had some of those when I was a kid in Chicago..Never hunted rats, though.
PA+Cat, there was a severe outbreak in Los Angeles in 1924. Killed a bunch of doctors and nurses at LA County Hospital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Los_Angeles_pneumonic_plague_outbreak
There is still Y pestis in California, mostly on ground squirrels in the Sierras. There is an occasional case but fortunately, not pneumonic, which can be transmitted person to person. It was the pneumonic that killed those doctors and nurses in 1924. No antibiotics.
That Wiki article is a bit confused as bubonic produces enlarged lymph nodes.
Do you think there’d be any market for rat-killing safaris in the concrete jungle?
Mike K–
I’m so old I can remember when Yersinia pestis was called Pasteurella pestis— and yes, I came across references to the 1924 LA outbreak a couple years ago when I had to do some research on plague.
Tony Hillerman, better known as a detective writer whose novels feature Navajo Tribal Police as the lead detectives, wrote an article titled “We All Fall Down” about an outbreak of plague in New Mexico that killed a geologist from Massachusetts in the early 1960s; the article was republished in a collection titled The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other True Stories of the Southwest. Hillerman later used bubonic plague as the backdrop in one of his detective novels, The First Eagle, published in 1998.
I grew up on a farm. We used to have rats colloquially called field rats or barn rats but they were really just Norway rats that grew to impressive size feeding on the seed corn that grew in abundance in our area of Indiana.
When we were kids my brothers and I made a sport out of hunting them and some of our trophies rivaled groundhogs in size.
We had a mixed breed terrier that would hunt them down and kill them (and deliver them to the back porch as a gift) but cats generally wouldn’t mess with them.
My weapon of choice when hunting rats was a Savage over/under combo with a .410 shotgun on the bottom and a .22 long rifle on the top. The .22 was perfect for head shots when they were sitting still, but you could hit them “on the run” using #7.5 shot from the .410 if they took off.
My little brother inherited that gun when my dad passed. He’s still got it.
Sailorcurt:
It is indeed dogs rather than cats who will go after rats.