Pioneering study finds more than 200,000 rats in Barcelona’s sewers

Re:Pioneering study finds more than 200,000 rats in Barcelon... by crispyambulance on Tuesday September 25, 2018 @10:13AM (#18066428)

    > can we release a rat specific poison or is that impossible without harming the entire ecosystem?

Many cities, like Baltimore, have an entire department devoted to "rat eradication" (https://publicworks.baltimorecity.gov/Rat-Eradication). Some have a "rat czar"

"Eradication" is a bit of a misnomer because it is not possible to actually eliminate rats from a city. The goal is to keep them from getting out of control. However bad a rat problem is, it can get much worse if unchecked.

These programs use a combination of public education, on-demand services (poison, burrow-treatments), and other interventions like city codes for proper garbage containers/handling etc.

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Re:Pioneering study finds more than 200,000 rats in Barcelon... by joecool1029 on Tuesday September 25, 2018 @10:34AM (#18066621)

>"Eradication" is a bit of a misnomer because it is not possible to actually eliminate rats from a city.

It’s been done before: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/rat-contro...

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Re:Pioneering study finds more than 200,000 rats in Barcelon... by lostlogin on Tuesday September 25, 2018 @10:43AM (#18066689)

And it’s not a long way off being tried in New Zealand, which has (distant) goals of being predator free. Presumably this excludes humans.

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