SkyNews – NYC will soon be giving rats birth control pills to stop reproducing. There are 3,000,000 rats in New York City
Contraceptive pellets will be placed in special rat-accessible traps starting next year, lowering their numbers humanely without endangering other animals or the environment, its supporters hope.
New York has come up with a novel approach to its infamous rat problem – targeting the rodents with birth-control pills.
City Council Member Shaun Abreu proposed a city ordinance Thursday that would establish a pilot program for controlling the millions of rats lurking in subway stations and empty lots by using birth control instead of lethal chemicals.
Abreu, chair of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, said the contraceptives also are more ethical and humane than other methods.
The contraceptive, called ContraPest, is contained in salty, fatty pellets that are scattered in rat-infested areas as bait.
It works by targeting ovarian function in female rats and disrupting sperm cell production in males, The New York Times reported.
New York exterminators currently kill rats using snap and glue traps, poisons that make them bleed internally, and carbon monoxide gas that can suffocate them in burrows.
Some hobbyists have even trained their dogs to hunt them.
Rashad Edwards, a film and television actor who runs pest management company Scurry Inc. in New York City with his wife, said the best method he has found when dealing with rodents is carbon monoxide.
He tries to use the most humane method possible, and carbon monoxide euthanizes the rats slowly, putting them to sleep and killing them. Edwards avoids using rat poison whenever possible because it is dangerous and torturous to the rodents, he said.
Some lawmakers in Albany are considering a statewide ban on glue boards under a bill moving through the Legislature. The traps, usually made from a slab of cardboard or plastic coated in a sticky material, can also ensnare small animals that land on its surface.
Edwards opposes a ban on sticky traps, because he uses them on other pests, such as ants, to reduce overall pesticide use.
When ants get into a house, he uses sticky traps to figure out where they’re most often passing by. It helps him narrow zones of pesticide use “so that you don’t go spray the entire place.”
