Rat birth control and ‘Rat Walks’ among new initiatives to curb NYC’s rat population

(NEW YORK) — New York City is known for its towering skyscrapers and bustling streets, but lurking beneath the glitz and glamour of the city that never sleeps are 3 million resilient rats that have cemented their place as native New Yorkers.

According to Orkin, the pest control service, New York has been ranked as the third rattiest city in the country behind Los Angeles and Chicago. Now local officials are taking up the battle against the city’s furry rodents.

In 2023, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city’s first Rat Czar, drawing national attention. Since then, many citywide initiatives have been explored.

Director of Rodent Mitigation Kathleen Corradi, aka the Rat Czar, is taking on the task of educating fellow New Yorkers with a new program called Rat Walks. It’s a program available in all boroughs where attendees learn everything about rats, their habits, and what human behaviors encourage the rodents to stick around.

In October, Corradi told participants attending a rat walk, “We’re doing a lot in this administration to make sure we’re containerizing, make sure we’re changing behaviors around waste management.”

Given a $3.5 million budget, Corradi is tasked with reducing the city’s rat population. Still, she says it’s up to New Yorkers, too, “The only way we are successful is getting an educated public change in behaviors and addressing those conditions that support rats. Extermination will always be a part of the conversation, but we know the long-term success relies on front-end equation, and that’s where we’re really focusing and empowering New Yorkers,” she told ABC News.

Several New Yorkers living in rat mitigation zones spoke to ABC News about seeing rats in their neighborhood. “The rats were all over the place, like just ‘Ratatouille,'” Shea Sullivan, a NYC resident, told ABC News. Samir, a superintendent, told us the situation in some of his apartment buildings was getting so out of hand that he had to drown rats himself, “I drowned them in water and killed them. This is ridiculous. It has to be changed completely.”

As New Yorkers are dealing with rats in their homes or neighborhoods, others are taking a different approach to tackling the issue.
New York City Council Member Shaun Abreu launched Bill 736, or “Flaco’s law.” The bill passed on Sept. 26, 2024, and will implement rat contraceptives in areas where trash is containerized. He told ABC News that rat birth control can help curb rat populations, but only if trash is fully contained so the rodents don’t have anything else to eat.

Two years ago, his office also introduced Rat Mitigation Zones, securing $11.5 million to fund the initiative.

“Through my legislation two years ago, the city established five rat mitigation zones, and in these rat mitigation zones citywide rat sightings have gone down by 14%, at least, based off of 311 complaints,” Abreu told ABC News.
In 2024, his office also introduced a residential pilot program to containerize trash in Harlem, an area largely infested with rats. “You have these giant bins out on the street and since we’ve implemented that last September, trash is now in containers. Now they’re not out for a rat buffet anymore. 311 complaints for rat sightings have gone down by 55%. No other intervention has been done this past year,” he told ABC News.

With the passing of Bill 736, rat contraceptives are expected to be rolled out on New York City streets by April 26, 2025.
The company WISDOM Good Works is expected to partner with the city to manage and maintain the distribution of rat birth control. “We’ve been working with City Council offices as well as city agencies that will be enforcing the bill,” the director of operations at WISDOM Good Works, Alaina Gonzalez-White, told ABC News.

She says that the birth control pellets are safer for all wildlife, not just rats. “It’s formulated to target the reproductive system of an animal the size of a rat. Anything that eats that rat will no longer be eating a poisoned meal.” PETA supports the initiative.

Ashley Byrne, senior campaigner for PETA, told us the end of rat poison, known as rodenticide, would mean saving the lives of pets that may come in contact with rats. “Ultimately, slaughtering rats doesn’t work. The only long-term and humane solution is prevention. No animal deserves to experience the slow suffering and miserable death that results from ingesting rat poison.”

Abreu shared his mission to combat rat populations more humanely, saying, “My goal personally is not for rats to go extinct. Our goal is (to) coexist in a way where rats aren’t showing up. I think our message is very much in line with the PETA message. We believe in New York City, we should throw everything we can at the problem from shutting off the food supply, but also targeting rat reproduction at the source.”
 

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