Why are there so many rats in NYC?

Most often than not Big cities mean lots of people living in crowded quarters, lots of restaurants and grocers providing goods for them , meat packing plants, fisheries, and other food sources. There are stores and kennels, pets shop and beauty parlors, and thousands of more business generating waste. Add to that millions of people generating trash and garbage every hour of the day. All these people and businesses generate many tons of garbage every day. The conditions in New York City are so conducive to harboring vermin that there is at least one rat roaming the streets for every person who lives there. The rats in NYC have become so prevalent that there are colonies containing upwards of 200 rats living in several parks on Manhattan’s ritzy Upper East Side. Rats fill the subway platforms, and have taken over alleyways that run behind businesses.



Almost every apartment complex in the inner city has a basement overrun with rats, and warehouses are flooded with the furry menace. The rats found in NYC are a particular type of brown rat. Millions of them live in New York City, scurrying around, wreaking havoc. They run through warehouses and supply rooms devouring all the food in sight. What they do not eat they contaminate with feces and urine. Rats have voracious appetites, breed at an alarming rate, and can spread a number of harmful viruses and bacteria everywhere they go. The rats in NYC carry E coli and bacteria that cause fever diarrhea and vomiting. Rats not only spread disease, they are extremely destructive. These brown rats have only been around for a few hundred years, and were most likely brown in from Asia on ships into the harbor. When the goods were unloaded on the docks, so were the rats.

These brown rats are mean, territorial, and not accepting of other types of rats. In studies, the researchers have found brown rats to aggressive and very competitive. Most rats caught for the study bore scars, some even missing eyes, or a part of its tail. It has also been noted that brown rats, like most rats, live in a caste society. The most dominant male gets to eat and to breed. If there is a food shortage, dominant rats will kill and eat the weaker ones to make sure there is enough food to go around. The rat problem in NYC is at such epidemical proportions that it will not be solved anytime soon. Animal control experts clear one section of town only to realize the rats have simply moved en’masse to another section. The latest plan to take control of the situation involves sterilizing the masses of rats to eliminate the population.

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Why are there so many rats in NYC?

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