NY Times Article Claims Humans Stand No Chance Against Rats

A recent New York Times article reports that the Bloomberg administration has declared war on rats in New York City's subways.  Studies have shown that rats, which infest most of the subway stations in the city, reside within station walls, emerging from cracks in the tile to steal bits of food.  The trash rooms in subway stations especially act as a restaurant to feed hungry rats.  Unfortunately, efforts to kill rats with poison are often futile, as passing trains scatter the poison before rats can indulge.

Working against the administration is the fact that rats are no ordinary creatures.  The article classifies rats as agile mammals known to be "diabolically clever."  A former director of the city's Bureau of Pest Control Services says “They jump two feet from a running start; they can fall 40 feet onto a concrete slab and keep running.  We’re no match for them, as far as I’m concerned. Man does not stand no chance.”

While I have a healthy respect and love for our furry friends, this comment seems a bit dramatic (and grammatically incorrect).  We're talking about RATS here, not Spiderman.  Clearly the writer of this NY Times article, one Michael Grynbaum, is a closet rat lover like Laura and me, and should probably be extended an invitation to blog along with us.

An interesting fact mentioned in the article is that in 1976 an academic study concluded that “rats with high blood pressure should not ride the subways too often or too long: the stress of noise, vibration, and crowding may kill some of them before their time."  I have a lot to say about that sentence.  How was this study conducted?  Did they put rats on empty subway cars and see what happened?  And how did they determine that only the high blood pressure rats should not ride the subway?  And what was the purpose of this study?

My favorite part of the article is the slideshow and accompanying commentary. 

Tangentially related, yesterday I saw three rats crawl out of the trash room at the Canal Street subway station and scamper up the stairs.  They did so quickly and efficiently, when no humans were climbing the stairs, and all three were grossly obese, probably from the pu pu platter of delicacies they feasted on in the trash room.  Which led me to think, as I often do, that if I could get paid to watch rats all day in the subway, I'd quit my day job in a second.  Maybe it's about time I contacted the NY Times to see if they need any field reporters...