{"id":33010,"date":"2025-07-02T11:26:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T11:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=33010"},"modified":"2025-07-02T11:26:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T11:26:25","slug":"on-the-streets-with-new-yorks-rat-tsar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=33010","title":{"rendered":"On the streets with New York\u2019s \u2018rat tsar\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=aec06444-4df4-43ac-8e80-49ac57bec609\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Summer arrives suddenly in New York. One moment an icy wind blows down the Hudson; the next, temperatures soar and the city\u2019s inhabitants emerge into the warm air. Some sightings are less welcome than others; the city\u2019s notorious rat population also tends to rise with the temperature.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had my own encounters \u2014 including, memorably, when a rat ran into my leg as I walked home one evening. Last summer, my first in the city, I watched in horror as they darted beneath the outdoor dining platforms on which oblivious New Yorkers sat enjoying alfresco meals. <\/p>\n<p>Rats exist on every continent except Antarctica but I\u2019ve never seen them brazenly helping themselves to rubbish amid the diners at a sidewalk caf\u00e9 anywhere but New York. \u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-layout\" data-component=\"flourish\" data-component-id=\"23359072\" data-component-type=\"flourish-in-article\">\n<figure class=\"n-content-picture n-content-layout__container\"><a href=\"#23359072\"><picture data-asset-type=\"flourish\" data-flourish-id=\"23359072\" data-flourish-type=\"visualisation\">\n<div id=\"23359072\" class=\"cp-message o-message o-message--inform o-message--notice\" data-o-component=\"o-message\">\n<div class=\"o-message__container\">\n<div class=\"o-message__content\">\n<p class=\"o-message__content-main\">Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/picture><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>To understand why they are so visible here, I headed to a park in Brooklyn to meet Kathleen Corradi, the city\u2019s first \u201crat tsar\u201d. Dressed in black, with a baseball cap emblazoned with a \u201crat pack\u201d logo, she is here to take a group of us on her rat walk, part of a community outreach effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShockingly little is known about urban rats,\u201d Corradi tells us \u2014 although she seems to know a lot: they like to live underground, can fit through an opening the size of a quarter, can survive for days on the residue in discarded food packaging and reproduce at speed. <\/p>\n<p>The rats found in New York are brown or Norway rats, <em>rattus norvegicus<\/em>. Exactly how many live here is anyone\u2019s guess. Jonathan Richardson, a professor of biology at the University of Richmond who studies urban rats, says that it is almost impossible to count their numbers accurately.<\/p>\n<p>Swift reproduction means their numbers can increase exponentially in a short time. \u201cThis is a species that\u2019s beautifully adapted to reproduce and to do it quickly. And so that\u2019s what creates such an uphill battle with management,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Richardson is clear that rats cannot be eradicated from urban environments, but their numbers can be kept in check. Key to this is keeping streets and parks clean. \u201cThe most effective strategy for managing them is to reduce their access to food resources,\u201d he tells me.\u00a0\u201cNew York was behind on all these things for a while, especially if you want to compare it to European cities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When New York mayor Eric Adams took office in 2022 he declared a war on rats, appointing Corradi and tasking her with designing a plan to co-ordinate agencies within the city\u2019s sprawling bureaucracy.<\/p>\n<p>Neighbourhoods with the worst infestations were targeted as mitigation zones, with intensive inspections by the city\u2019s health department and fines for property owners who repeatedly failed to follow their instructions. <\/p>\n<p>Throughout the city, buildings with fewer than nine apartments were ordered to put rubbish into lidded containers for collection. Larger buildings were to put it out in bags at specified times.<\/p>\n<p>A pilot programme in West Harlem has mandated the use of sealed containers known as empire bins. The plan is to roll these out to the entire city.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a massive change in how New York City handles its trash, getting it out of gross bags on the street and into containers that keep smells in and rats out,\u201d says Vincent Gragnani of the NYC department of sanitation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Back in Brooklyn, Corradi is showing us burrows next to a playground. Park staff have filled the entrances with gravel to deter the rats from returning. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit like going home and finding your front door key doesn\u2019t work,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, <em>rattus norvegicus <\/em>can chew its way through concrete (it can also jump three feet and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CUFoe0YaLRo\" data-trackable=\"link\">has been filmed<\/a> climbing up a metal pole in a subway car).\u00a0The aim of the gravel is to introduce stress that slows down breeding. The goal is \u201csustained reduction\u201d, Corradi says. \u201cSilver bullets do not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One NYC innovation is a portal to report rodent sightings.\u00a0On my way home I see a pile of rubbish bags piled up neatly along my street, ready for collection the following morning. A rat races out from one and disappears into the darkness and, shuddering slightly, I make my report on the portal, a diligent new member of New York\u2019s rat pack.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/mailto:siona.jenkins@ft.com\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>siona.jenkins@ft.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/aec06444-4df4-43ac-8e80-49ac57bec609\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}