New York City appointed a rat czar. Her job will be a tall ask
Then restaurants reopened. "When the restaurants reopened, we had a problem because the few rats had actually made that migration and were successful in finding new places. Guess what? They've placed their little flag in a new neighborhood and a new resource. Now once that flag is there, it stays," says Michael Parsons, an urban ecologist at Fordham University.
Know your enemy Parsons says that the New York City plan doesn't follow the science. He's written a five step playbook to get rid of the city's rats. It all starts with the tried and true "know thy enemy."
Think outside the rat trap Current rat eradication strategies focus on killing rats. But researchers say it's time to move from mitigating the symptoms of a problem — like an overabundance of rats — to tackling the root of the problem.