Mayor Eric Adams might be assailed by FBI investigations, but he was the star of the show at New York City’s inaugural Rat Summit on Wednesday.
Dozens of the United States’ leading rat experts — as well as a Canadian delegation — descended on Pier 57 in Chelsea with a single goal: bludgeoning the vermin into submission, once and for all. Rodent experts gave sweeping presentations that included maps of rat populations and slides of dissected opossums.
But it was Adams who kicked off the two-day summit with a rousing speech in which he likened himself to a hero in he war against rats.
“I don’t think there’s been a mayor in history that says how much he hates rats,” he said. “I dislike rats. And I am so happy I have a four-star general who is working on finally winning the war on rats.”
Exterminators weren’t invited to the event, and neither were the city’s rats. Kathleen Corradi, whom Adams appointed as the city’s first “rat czar” last year, described the event as a space where rodent experts could share their philosophical treatises.
“These next 48 hours are part of a much larger dialogue, a centuries-long conversation between humans, their urban spaces and the rats who have eagerly exploited them both,” she said. “It is through understanding this history that we can join confidently, in community, to look forward to a new paradigm in urban rat management, a future where all — academics and advocates, cities and citizens — are working in partnership to achieve our common goal.”
The war on rats may never end
But Dr. Ashwin Vasan, the city’s health commissioner, entered the rat symposium espousing a more diplomatic approach for dealing with Adams’ public enemy No. 1.
“The ‘war on rats’ mentality may not be the best approach for our urban areas,” he said.
Dr. Chelsea Himsworth, founder of the Vancouver Rat Project, compared the never-ending fight to the war on drugs — and said health officials should focus on harm reduction instead of eliminating the vermin altogether.
“It can’t be solved,” Himsworth solemnly declared. “It can only be managed.”
New York City’s rats are ‘fearless’
Kaylee Byers, who was a member of Himsworth’s crack Canadian rat research team, said her cohort came to New York with a wealth of insight for Adams’ own fight, which has mostly centered around the mayor’s push to require the containerization of most of the city’s garbage.
“I’ve handled 700 rats myself,” said Byers, who fondly recalled driving around Vancouver in a “rat van,” capturing rats, collecting their feces and urine, and even anesthetizing the rodents to pick fleas off their skin.
Byers said her team conducted genetic studies on the rats they collected and used GPS ear tags to track their movements through the British Columbian metropolis. She said most rat families kept to their own blocks.
“I spent eight months of my life living in this van trapping rats,” Byers recalled. “Rats are a social justice and health equity issue. Some communities are impacted more than others.”
“They’re symbols about a lack of resources in your community,” she added.
She said her Vancouver “rat pack” visited a park in the East Village the night before the summit for a “rat stakeout,” and was shocked by the attitude of Gotham’s rodents. She said the rats in the five boroughs are “fearless” compared to their Canadian counterparts.
“They do get very close to you in ways that in other areas they don’t necessarily, and that’s part of the problem,” Byers said. “It’s because they are right next to you. They’re in your home.”
Rats like to pee on each other
Rats don’t just like to live together. Experts say the fuzzy freaks also urinate on one another to assert dominance.
“Rats live in tight social groups,” Byers said. “When you remove some, you change how they interact with each other. You’re changing how you fight for their social hierarchy. And they do urinate on each other that whole time.”
And Byers said the rodent urine she’s studied contains bacteria like leptospira, which can lead to a flu-like illness. Five New York City sanitation workers were diagnosed with the disease last year, which union officials said was caused by their close contact with rats.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)