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This honestly appears to be a very difficult problem to solve. It seems that to be truly be effective in rat reduction at a city scale the fix may need to come
by cuttothechase 4y ago
This honestly appears to be a very difficult problem to solve.
It seems that to be truly be effective in rat reduction at a city scale the fix may need to come from elsewhere and may have very little to do with directly working on exterminating the rats.
Fixes may be needed starting from urban planning through waste/sewage handling methods at a street level all the way up to the city.
Also not sure if there would be enough leverage and incentives for any candidate who is going to be hired for this job at their advertised $120K to be able to achieve that kind of a change!
Seems like another easy win for the rats at the tax payers expense!
- colechristensen 4y agoWhy not feral cats? Considerably more pleasant than rats. Or like teams of trained dogs.
- dymk 4y agoCats kill everything, not just rats Ratting dogs are certainly a thing, but it’s probably unsafe to release a bunch of dogs into the sewers.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoYeah the dogs will die and then it’ll be an outrage. I’ve seen them work on a field but the sewers and subway tunnels etc. are very hazardous and dark
- theshrike79 4y agoIf you have a mouse, get a cat. If your problem is hundreds of mice, get terriers. They just kill and move on, they don't play with the mouse or eat it. https://youtu.be/l2Pyu-Cj0gg https://youtu.be/l2Pyu-Cj0gg
- moralestapia 4y agoWhoa very ... interesting video. Makes one feel fascinated and troubled at the same time.
- gerdesj 4y agoI suggest Jack Russells with some Yorkies for the bigger ones. If you have some lions causing trouble then a few of your Border Terriers is indicated along with a pack of Rodesians.
- tzs 4y agoThere were a lot of rats in that fairly small area of that large field in which they were digging. Were they digging in some specific place they knew would have an especially high rat concentration (a nesting area perhaps?) or is the whole large field that dense with rats and that's just where they happened to be working at the moment?
- jimmaswell 4y agoMy parents' poor excuse for a terrier just sat there and stared at mice taking its food away at night. Mini fox terrier instead of rat terrier though. Maybe they're just only interested in foxes.
- jelliclesfarm 4y agoWe have gophers in our field. There is one single feral cat in my farm that’s is rather good at catching the gophers. Chihuahuas too do a great job. We set up some owl shelters and raptor poles. Snakes, cats, raptors are all predators. All of them unavailable in cities where rats don’t just survive, they thrive! Gophers are a big problem. As it’s an organic farm, pest control options are limited. A few years ago, someone came to test their sonic gopher eradication system. Using sound waves. I don’t know if that would work for other rodents. Squirrels are just rats with a bushier prettier tail. We love squirrels. Weird.
- anikom15 4y agoWhat about alligators?
- angelbar 4y agoooh, the memories !
- JackFr 4y agoNot if you’ve heard a literal cat fight at 3 AM.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoRaccoons make cats sound like angels.
- woodruffw 4y agoN=1, but my neighborhood in NYC has both feral cats and rats. Maybe not as many rats as other neighborhoods in the area, but enough that it doesn’t seem to be a real solution. (There are other issues as well, like the cats destroying local bird populations and getting sick when they kill poisoned rats.)
- Spooky23 4y agoCats are a pest too as they slaughter birds.
- jalapenos 4y agoAn ordinary house cat won't usually hunt rats, because they're too big. They hunt mice. A bobcat on the otherhand... Depends how much you want to replace one animal with another.
- lukas099 4y agoCats are one of the worst invasive species there is, unfortunately.
- ren_engineer 4y ago>It seems that to be truly be effective in rat reduction at a city scale the fix may need to come from elsewhere and may have very little to do with directly working on exterminating the rats yeah, basically treat the root cause rather than symptoms of the problem. Hiring more rat killers is like taking pain killers instead of fixing whatever injury is causing the pain. Realistically this problem would require some sort of position that has temporary authority across multiple departments where systematic changes need to be made to actually solve the problem. Instead you get more rat killers as a band aid solution
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- scoofy 4y agoNYC is the only American city I know where garbage is just left on the sidewalk for hours every day. I imagine simply requiring bins/dumpsters would absolutely devastate the rat populations.
- Scoundreller 4y agoImport raccoons. Works for Toronto. What’s NYC’s problem? Not enough detached housing in downtown maybe.
- woodruffw 4y agoDon't worry, we've got raccoons too[1]! [1]: https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/raccoons-terrorize-bronx-nypd-tow-pound/ https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/raccoons-terrorize-bronx-nypd-...
- 22289d 4y agoI live in an area where raccoons are common and I'd rather have the rats. Those things live off of trash too and they're scary, aggressive and dangerous. And they're rabid. Rats run from humans. Raccoons attack them. Try to get between a raccoon and it's trash and good chance you come away with rabies.
- ilyt 4y ago"See that one weird trick on how NYC solved homeless problem" video of some people running away from racoons
- Scoundreller 4y ago> good chance you come away with rabies. Naw, they've tested them in Toronto: none had rabbies since 1997. A sick raccoon usually has distemper, which you have nothing to worry about as a human. It's the 2-3% of bats with rabies you have to worry about. https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/health-wellness-care/health-programs-advice/rabies-prevention-and-control/rabies-in-animals/ https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/health-wellness-care... > Try to get between a raccoon and it's trash Why would I do that?
- rsj_hn 4y ago> Seems like another easy win for the rats at the tax payers expense! This is the unofficial city byline: "New York City - where the rats always win."
- jghn 4y agoOne underappreciated but is extermination generally leads to more rats. If you just kill off rats but do not make the area less hospitable to them, it registers as a good place to live due to less competition and they show up & breed. This is currently a big issue in my city. Efforts are focusing on extermination only but since they can never get all of them it keeps making the problem worse in tbe areas of concentration.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago> it registers as a good place to live Kind of like with weeds. Go ahead and pull them out, but as long as there are a few or some seeds remaining and a whole whack of substrate to grow in… They will be back in a hurry. The rats can’t live there if food isn’t so readily available. I’ve seen the terrifying videos of them eating each other, but presumably even that could only last so long. Poorly managed waste seems to be a huge factor in this, and rats on a symptom.
- pj_mukh 4y agoSorry for seeing nails everywhere as a robotics engineer but wouldn't it be awesome to have human-driven garbage trucks driving down 5th, 6th, 7th avenue while smaller https://www.nuro.ai/ https://www.nuro.ai/ sized autonomous vans go up and down the perpendicular streets picking up trash every day. You increase frequency of trash pick up 5x at the same staff levels. Rats be damned. Also seems like a constrained enough environment that you wouldn't get mired in autonomous driving corner case hell. It would be small bike sized vehicles driving in bike lanes.
- locusofself 4y agoI thought you were going to suggest little rat killing robots
- steve_adams_86 4y agoI feel like the further I dig into automating anything, the more I find fucking everything has a huge margin for error and narrowing those margins is like a lifetime of engineering in itself. Mind you I’m not an engineer at all, I just play one on the weekend. But really, some seemingly trivial stuff can become really complicated in a hurry. I can see automated trash pickup accidentally disposing of kids or something on the first day. Like you though, I love the idea. I’m just more discouraged by my own incompetence.
- marcosdumay 4y agoOh, picking-up trash is certainly one of those things that will take people-centuries to solve once somebody decides to solve it. There are people-centuries of work applied to picking-up some much more controlled items on fabrics and warehouses. And the problem is just barely solved enough for the machines to be useful.
- lantry 4y agoyeah no offense but I think robots aren't the right solution here. Roosevelt island has a pneumatic system that sucks garbage through underground tubes. It's not foolproof, but it's probably a lot simpler and more efficient than a fleet of robots https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539304811/how-new-york-s-roosevelt-island-sucks-away-summer-trash-stink https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539304811/how-new-york-s-roos...
- freediver 4y agoThere are a few different ways to address the problem of rats in New York in a creative way. One approach could be to implement a city-wide composting program, which would reduce the amount of food waste available for rats to eat. Additionally, the city could invest in more effective waste management infrastructure, such as sealed trash cans and improved sanitation systems, to make it harder for rats to access food sources. Another creative solution could be to introduce predators, such as birds of prey or snakes, into areas where rats are a problem. This approach would help to naturally control the rat population without the need for harmful pesticides. Ultimately, the key to addressing the problem of rats in New York will be to implement a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach that addresses the root causes of the problem. -- ChatGPT
- kodah 4y agoI can't imagine there being a solution to rats in sewers. NYC is a sprawling city and the sewers are necessarily large and must be put in place where they can be dug up and replaced. I feel like the more sustainable option is above ground, but I don't know NYC that well.
- sbaiddn 4y agoWell its an easy enough problem if you put it in the right perspective: NYC is filthy. NY can start by using garbage bins instead of the sidewalk. Even my suburban town collects garbage in an animal safe container.
- g0xA52A2A 4y agoIt’s the 31st century, I’m exiting the TTS and once again I’m accosted by owls.
- evanb 4y agoMy mom has told me that the rat problem in NYC used to be a lot less. The rat population exploded when buildings were no longer allowed to incinerate their garbage for air-quality considerations.
- lukas099 4y agoWorth the trade, in my opinion.
- Tade0 4y agoMy take is that it's the sheer population density that enables it. Large, dense European cities like Paris and Barcelona also have a rat problem. Rats travel within a 100 meter radius from their nest in search for food, so more humans = more waste = more food. Even if we keep everything tidy there's always this 1% of assholes who litter. At the same time the denser the city, the more difficult it is to conduct waste disposal services because even the nicest garbage container is going to smell, so you want it appropriately far from buildings and garbage trucks are large vehicles, which struggle in narrow alleys.