New York lawmakers are proposing rules to humanely reduce the population of rats and other rodents, considering contraception and a ban on glue traps as alternatives to poison or a slow, brutal death.
Politicians have long found creative ways to combat rodents, but some lawmakers are now proposing city- and statewide measures to do more.
In New York, the idea of distributing rat contraceptives received new attention from the city government Thursday after the death of an escaped zoo owl, known as Flaco, who was found dead with rat poison in his body.
City Council member Shaun Abreu proposed a city ordinance Thursday that would establish a pilot program to control the millions of rats hiding in subway stations and empty lots using birth control instead of deadly chemicals. Abreu, chairman of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, said contraceptives are also more ethical and humane than other methods.
The contraceptive, called ContraPest, is contained in salty, fatty pellets that are scattered in rat-infested areas as bait. It works by targeting ovarian function in female rats and disrupting sperm production in males, the New York Times reported.
New York exterminators currently kill rats using snap and glue traps, poisons that make them bleed internally, and carbon monoxide that can suffocate them in burrows. Some enthusiasts have even trained their dogs to hunt them.
Rashad Edwards, a film and television actor who runs the pest control company Scurry Inc. in New York with his wife, said the best method he has found to control rodents is carbon monoxide.
He tries to use the most humane method possible, and the carbon monoxide slowly euthanizes the rats, putting them to sleep and killing them. Edwards avoids using rat poison whenever possible because it is dangerous and torturous for rodents, he said.
Some Albany lawmakers are considering a statewide ban on glue boards under a bill currently being considered by the Legislature. Traps, usually made of a sheet of cardboard or plastic covered with a sticky material, can also trap small animals that land on its surface.
Edwards opposes banning sticky traps because it uses them on other pests, such as ants, to reduce overall pesticide use. When ants enter a home, he uses sticky traps to determine where they most often pass through. This helps him narrow down the areas of pesticide use “so we don’t spray the whole place.”
“This is not a problem we can kill our way out of,” said Jakob Shaw, special project manager for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “It is time to adopt these more common sense and more humane methods.”
Two California cities have banned glue traps in recent years. At the federal level, a bill currently in committee would ban traps nationwide.
“This ends a truly inhumane practice of managing rat populations,” said Jabari Brisport, a New York state senator who represents part of Brooklyn and sponsored the bill proposing the new guidelines. “There are more effective and humane ways to deal with rats.”
Every generation of New Yorkers has struggled to control rat populations. Mayor Eric Adams hired a “rat czar” last year to combat the hated rodents. Last month, New York City reduced the amount of food served to rats by requiring all businesses to dispose of their waste in cardboard boxes.
While the war on rats has no end in sight, exterminator Edwards said we can learn a lot from their resilience. Rodents, he says, can never be eradicated, only managed.
“They are very intelligent and very wise,” he said. “It’s very inspiring, but not at home.”
ABC News
