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| Britain |
| Plague of rats as UK turns wetter |
| 2008-02-10 |
| Driven out of sewers by summer floods and an urban building boom, then nurtured by warmer winters and the leftovers of fast food, rats have been moving into homes, gardens and even cars around the country. Rat-catchers and companies selling poison and traps are reporting a boom in business, with urban housing estates among the worst affected areas. Long-term growth in rodent populations is also blamed on a decline in 'sewer-baiting', the practice of laying down poison twice a year to prevent rat numbers building up underground. Because rats breed on average five times a year, with seven or eight in each litter, growth can be rapid. The recent surge in numbers has been linked to a boom in urban development - not least the preparations for the 2012 London Olympics - and last summer's floods, which drove rats out from underground, through holes and cracks in pipes and drains. Rentokil, the UK's largest pest control company, said demand rose by more than a quarter last year as hits on its website trebled. Killgerm, the country's biggest seller of rat poison, said sales rose by a quarter in 2007. Rentokil estimates there are 65 million to 80 million rats in Britain, eating their way through 210 tonnes of food a year. This compares with an estimated 45 million to 50 million a decade ago, a rise of nearly 40 per cent, though the company admits such calculations are 'not an exact science'. The biggest increases appear to have been in the south of England, western Scotland and Northern Ireland; only East Anglia and the south Midlands reported a fall. 'It's a bit like crime statistics: it's difficult to tell whether the number of incidents has gone up, or if the reporting is more prevalent,' said Rentokil's UK managing director, Jed Kenrick. 'But there's no doubt that the number of calls we're getting about rodents is significantly up on 12 months ago.' Rats can spread diseases to humans through their urine, including Weil's disease and salmonella, though the Health Protection Agency said cases which could be linked to rats were 'rare' and there was no evidence of any increase in recent years. Reuben and Louisa Hunter of Palmer's Green, north London, returned from a family holiday in Northern Ireland last month with their 14-month-old baby Sophie, to find that a rat had gnawed its way through the plastic around their car's gear stick, seat belts and the baby seat. 'The car looked like it had been broken into,' Sophie's father said. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) says that rather than call in the pest control experts it is more humane to avoid attracting rats in the first place by keeping food and buildings sealed. 'Rats are highly intelligent, social animals who excel at learning,' said Poorva Joshipura, director of Peta Europe. 'They do not want to die trying to gnaw their leg off in traps or slowly suffering from poison.' |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #7 3dc, as I understand it the problem the last time around was that when the rats died of the pneumonic Bubonic Plague, the infected fleas jumped to the people. Killing the rats out in the open is perhaps not the best idea. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-02-10 23:08 |
| #6 i will venture a guess that "urban housing areas" are what we would call the ghetto |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-02-10 22:44 |
| #5 ship stray cats to the UK? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-02-10 22:41 |
| #4 That's how the Black Plague started, as a result of the Global Cooling at the time. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-02-10 19:55 |
| #3 substitute muzzies for rats and the message remains the same. |
| Posted by: jds 2008-02-10 17:17 |
| #2 Because rats breed on average five times a year, with seven or eight in each litter, growth can be rapid. Jeebus, that's even higher than the Paleos! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-02-10 17:17 |
| #1 Labour Government: Well, hopefully the plague of frogs will eat the plague of rats and the plagues of flies and lice; maybe we can convince the NHS to shorten its 3-year waiting list for the plague of boils; and we can blame the Thames turning red on Man Made Global Warming. We'll blame the deaths of all firstborn sons on Afghanistan and cut the military budget some more, then finally tell everybody that they should celebrate the unending darkness as diversity. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-02-10 16:38 |