How rats became an inescapable part of city living
RATS ARE OUR shadow selves. We live on the surface of the city; they generally live below. We mostly work by day; they mostly work by night. But nearly everywhere that people live, rats live too.
In Seattle, where I grew up, the rats excel at climbing sewer pipes—from the inside. Somewhere in my hometown right now, a long, wet Norway rat is poking its twitchy pink nose above the water surface in a toilet bowl. Seattle also has another species, roof rats, which nest in trees and skitter along telepon lines. In the Middle Ages, they may have transmitted plague.
From Seattle to Buenos Aires, urban rat populations are rising—as much as 15 to 20 percent in the past decade, according to one ahli. Charismatic animals like elephants, polar bears, and lions are all in decline, yet inside our cities, we find it hard even with extraordinary efforts to keep rat populations in cek. Trik Untuk Memenangkan Judi Slot Online
Of all the animals that thrive in our world—pigeons, mice, sparrows, spiders—we feel strongest about rats. Rats have a reputation for being filthy and sneaky. They're seen as signs of urban decay and carriers of pestilence.
More than any other city creature, they inspire fear and disgust. People hate rats.Do the little beasts really deserve it? Some of the things we hate most about rats—their dirtiness, their fecundity, their undeniable grit and knack for survival—are qualities that could describe us as well. Their filth is really our own: In most places rats are thriving on our trash and our carelessly tossed leftovers.
"It is us, the humans," New York rodentologist Bobby Corrigan says. "We don't keep our nest clean."
Corrigan is a leading ahli on urban rats. He has studied the animals since 1981 and works as a consultant for cities and companies around the world with rat problems. He's the one who told me about the sireneingly high rate of rat "toilet emergence" in Seattle.
I meet him on his turf on a warm April day at a park in lower Manhattan, one of the rat capitals of the world. Corrigan appears in a hard hat and neon orange vest, holding a clipboard. These accoutrements of authority will allow us to tromp through flower beds and subway tunnels without being challenged. Small statured and intent, Corrigan was raised in a big Irish Catholic family on Long Island. He talks like New Yorkers in the movies.
