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Medicine United States

CDC Warns of Increasingly Aggressive Rodents Looking For New Food Sources (seattletimes.com) 189

New submitter Way Smarter Than You shares a report from The Seattle Times: Humans aren't the only ones hankering for the days they could dine out at their cities' restaurants: Some rats that miss feasting on the scraps are becoming increasingly brazen to find new food sources, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Thursday. Amid stay-home restrictions set across the country to battle the spread of the novel coronavirus, many restaurants and cafes are closed or limited to takeout and delivery, and with the reduced sales, the restaurants' trash bins are no longer overflowing with scrumptious leftovers hoards of rodents subsisted on. Finding slimmer pickings than they used to, cities' critters are more aggressive, prompting CDC to issue guidance on how to deter them.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been increased reports of rat cannibalism and infanticide in New York, as well as more rat complaints in residential areas -- including in Chicago -- as humans produce more food waste at home. Roving rat armies, including one caught on camera scavenging New Orleans' empty streets, are concerning to the CDC, which says rodents can carry disease. The CDC advises home and business owners to cover garbage cans, put bird and pet food out of reach and seal small holes rodents could access in buildings. If people follow established cleaning guidelines, they can avoid exposure to rodent-borne diseases, according to the agency.

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CDC Warns of Increasingly Aggressive Rodents Looking For New Food Sources

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  • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @05:13AM (#60109318)
    who have come out of the woodwork eager to use this event as an excuse to flex their control over others and are drunk on all their new found power and will do what they can to keep or extend or find another pretense to continue wielding this power once this lockdown winds down.
  • by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @05:39AM (#60109334)
    Use peanut butter in your traps
  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @05:42AM (#60109338)

    Rodents Of Unusual Size?

    • Urban rodentologist Bobby Corrigan foresaw increased reports of aggressive rodents when the pandemic began. He said with restaurants closing, rats would need to adapt to find new food sources. In late March, he put out a call to other pest experts like him to share what they find surveying their area.

      Corrigan told The Post that a pest expert sent him a photo after a gruesome rat battle in Queens, New York: A nest of rats had left to scrounge for food at their usual city block of restaurants but turned on each other when they couldn’t find enough scraps, Corrigan believes. A pile of rat limbs on the sidewalk was all that remained.

      Rodents of Unusual Savagery, perhaps, matched only in nature by a clamor of Karens in the tissue aisle at Krogers.

  • Food waste (Score:4, Interesting)

    by swilver ( 617741 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @06:16AM (#60109372)

    So, normally these rat armies are sustained by wasted food from restaurants in apparently poorly closed containers.

    Similar stories I hear from farmers who can't sell all their produce. Normally restaurants and hotels buy it, and apparently waste a lot of it, because last I checked, minus a few corona deaths, we still have the same number of mouths to feed.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      The problem is the distribution system is based on payment for that distribution. Think of it as a supply chain. Now that supply chain has been broken in places and the alleged administration is not up to the task of putting in place even a cursory chain to bring the food to the people who need it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        Now that supply chain has been broken in places and the alleged administration is not up to the task of putting in place even a cursory chain to bring the food to the people who need it.

        The Administration? What you're describing is a job for the Legislature (you know, the people who write the laws). So, why hasn't the House (which is required to write ALL spending bills) bothered to, well, write such a Bill?

        Especially since, once they write such a Bill, they can then blame the Senate if it doesn't work o

      • It's interesting where in the supply chain things go bad.

        In the UK flour vanished from the shelves as people started cooking everything at home. And the flour producers had massive gluts of flour. The main problem is that under normal circumstances misty floor is purchased by commercial entities where it arrives in bags of 25kg or larger. Even switching to continuous 24 hr production, the 1kg bagging equipment cannot keep up with the demand and the lead time on that sort of thing is long at the best of time

        • I think there's that, and some level of regulation that requires food sold in stores to meet consumer packaging and labeling information.

          What surprises me is why producers didn't get groceries to just start selling food service-sized packages with some basic label stuck to the outside of the bag that met the basic minimum labeling requirements.

          I think "they" underestimated people's willingness to buy large quantities of basic staples, either for themselves or to split up among neighbors/friends/family. I d

          • In Canada, we have a retail chain called "Bulk Barn" that essentially does that. They have many of the things grocery stores are out of (flour, yeast, dried beans, etc) readily available. Since Covid, there are some changes in procedures though (you have to ask a gloved, masked employee to scoop things into a bag for you).
        • Not just in the UK. The same thing happened here. The five and ten pound sacks of flour vanished from the stores, as did yeast. What is really annoying is that north, northeast, and southeast of town are wheat fields. Tens of thousands of acres of wheat, and no flour.

          South of town they grow potatoes, and the stores ran out of them too. So the farmers got together and had a potato giveaway. The usual buyers weren't buying, so at least they could get a charitable deduction.

          Do they really sell flour in 1 kg ba

      • What would they replace it with? The same businesses or workers that were forced to close due to lockdowns or had other restrictions placed on them to limit production?

        I’ll never cease to be amazed at people who propose government intervention for problems result from government intervention. However I’m appalled that people want all of that authority vested in a single person. The United States decides to do away with kings long ago.
    • Re:Food waste (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @07:37AM (#60109510)

      When I am shopping for food for myself, I will get nearly all the food that I will eat during the week, sometimes I will use leftovers to not waste food.

      Restaurants don't have that luxury. If they give you a 1 kilogram of food, and you only eat 1/2 kilogram of food (still a lot) they will have to toss that extra food away. If they only served 1/2 kg of food, then people will not show up. Because if they are really hungry they may eat more.
      Also the restaurants plan on having more food available then customers, as they don't want to run out. So say during lunch hour a burger joint will begin prepping and cooking 250 burgers, and during that time, they sell 225. the other 25 burgers will get tossed, as they wouldn't be up to the quality the restaurant want to have.

      • In other words people are impatient for their food to be cooked, and that fact is reflected in waste.

      • "during lunch hour a burger joint will begin prepping and cooking 250 burgers, and during that time, they sell 225. the other 25 burgers will get tossed, as they wouldn't be up to the quality the restaurant want to have."

        Wendy's uses them to make chili. That's no excuse.

      • So fix the bin.

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @06:24AM (#60109384) Journal

    ...it IS the year of the rat, after all.

  • If this is a problem, what you should do is get a small terrier. Check the breed, but many were specially bred to search-and-destroy rodents.

    • You know that cute little thing where they grab a toy and shake it back and forth. That's from their breeding, the grab small animals by the neck and shake them back and forth. Sadly the basic instincts are still there but the more sophisticated ones are bred out. A lot of dogs when confronted with a rat will try to make friends with it, Just ask any dog owner who has encountered a skunk.
      • Life long dog owner and farm owner of twenty years here. Never seen a breed of dog who's latched onto a rat NOT shake it to death. Terriers weren't bred to shake but to acquire (small, quick). Best ratter I had was Sadie, a mini-Dach. She could also run down a rabbit like a heat seeking missile, chasing behind it matching zig for zag. Want to see ratters in action - YouTube. You'll find the rat is typically taken mid back.

        I believe you're conflating curiosity at never having seen a rat with wanting
    • Though I do not doubt the outcome in a one-on-one scenario, a small terrier isn't much bigger than a city rat and certainly could not stand up to the "Roving rat armies" mentioned in the summary.
      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Rats are smart enough to pick the softer targets. If you've got a terrier, they'll pick someone else.

      • How many rats you talking about, fifty? And are they acting like a coordinated squad instead of the typical run for your life response? A terrier can kill a rat in less than a second. A rat trained one will kill rat after rat after rat, dropping each as it dies.

        A rat may only be a few inches shorter than a terrier but the terrier will have 10-15 pounds on him. And canines.

        If you want to find out how dogs (and minks) work together to take out rats, check out Joseph Carter the Mink Man [youtube.com].
  • there have been increased reports [...] in New York, as well as more rat complaints in residential areas -- including in Chicago

    I know New York City is big, but I didn't realize it had grown large enough to count Chicago among its suburbs.

  • Now that the rodents can't lie without triggering a fact-check leak, they are becoming increasingly aggressive in their rhetoric. Oh wait, this story is really about the four-legged kind, not politicians. My mistake. And apologies in advance to the humor impaired.
  • It has never been easier to harvest rat brains for your rodent brain beowulf cluster! They even take care of the killing for you, you need only recover their half-eaten bodies and extract the brains.

  • I was mugged by a rat holding a Glock!

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