DC’s war on rats goes digital

Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by maoistinquisitr on Monday January 01, 2018 @09:21PM (#16049384)

A traditional and effective measure against urban rat populations is stray cats. But for whatever reason people in the west won't allow that anymore.

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Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by Zak on Monday January 01, 2018 @09:35PM (#16049425)

One of the related stories on the site talks about using feral cats: https://wamu.org/story/17/07/07/feral-cats-solve-d-c-s-rat-p...

There is a program to place feral cats with residents who request them and it has a waiting list. Its effectiveness is debated, and bird advocates don't like it.

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Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by lovich on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @12:06PM (#16053238)

Because they are indiscriminate. They are not programmed to attack just rats, they will decimate all small animal populations and fight with pets. We could let that happen but that comes back around to having an increasingly human unfriendly environment to deal with the rats

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Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by rootbear on Monday January 01, 2018 @09:54PM (#16049494)

I've seen rats in DC that would eat a cat for breakfast. Those suckers are huge!

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Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by nn3 on Monday January 01, 2018 @10:21PM (#16049623)

So you need coyotes instead?

They can likely deal with any size rat.

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Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by tim333 on Monday January 01, 2018 @10:59PM (#16049764)

Or rat terriers, controlling rats since 1545 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier

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Re:DC’s war on rats goes digital by molloy on Monday January 01, 2018 @11:32PM (#16049889)

Cats can decimate local bird populations as well

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