Keith Addison wrote:
Check out the last two paragraphs below.Keith Addison
Journey to Forever
Handmade Projects
Tokyo
http://journeytoforever.org/
November 29, 2000
New York City Ponders Rat ProblemA.P. INDEXES: TOP STORIES | NEWS | SPORTS | BUSINESS | TECHNOLOGY |
ENTERTAINMENTBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:30 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Some big cheeses held a summit Wednesday at Columbia
University on how to get rid of the rats that seem to be overrunning
New York City.
``Twenty years ago this city had a concerted effort to fight rats,''
rat expert Randy Dupree said somewhat wistfully. ``That stopped, and
now we've seen a burgeoning of the rodent population. What we need is
everyone to join in on a war on rats.''
About 250 rat-weary citizens turned out for the Rat Summit, at which
academics, health officials, politicians and bureaucrats focused on
Public Enemy No. 1 -- Rattus norvegicus, commonly known as the
Norwegian rat.
``Rat rage'' appears to be on the rise in New York. At a recent rally
on the steps of City Hall, demonstrators chanted such slogans as,
``One rat, two rat, three rats, four, everywhere I look there's more
and more.''
The city now has two official rat hot lines and a new City Council
committee that focuses specifically on vermin, and Mayor Rudolph W.
Giuliani has designated an official as the city's ``rat czar.''
``We make unprecedented efforts to kill rats,'' Giuliani said. ``We
kill more of them than any place else. We probably lead the country
in rat killing.''
City Councilman Bill Perkins proposed banning the city's wire-mesh
trash receptacles because they make it easy for rats to get to the
garbage.
Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota, the rat czar, urged everyone to be more sanitary.
Bruce Colvin, who works as a consultant on rats, said estimates of 8
million rats in the city are almost certainly exaggerated, as are
tales about about foot-long monsters roaming the sewers and coming
out at night to feed on stray cats and lost puppies.
To control rats, Colvin insisted, New York should not focus on
killing rodents by placing packets of poison in abandoned lots and on
subway tracks, but should instead concentrate on eliminating the
animals' food, particularly grease from restaurants.
``For rats, grease is a high-protein food source,'' he said. ``It
allows them to kick up their sex drive. You know the rest.''
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