Goodbye to Mr Rat with breakthrough contraception method

When a recent scientific discovery to control the rat population gets on to the market then rodent operative Poppy might become redundant.  She’s our chief rat catcher and is brilliant at keeping us clear of rodents.  Wherever there are humans you will find rats, they live and thrive among our waste and cause more human deaths every year than any other mammal.

Rats are prolific breeders, one pair can produce 15,000 offspring in a year so no matter how many cats, they are hardly making a dent in their numbers.  Why isn’t it live and let live?  Because rats carry pathogens and poisons including C.difficile and hepatitis and because they can get almost everywhere (if a rat can get his nose through hole then the rest of him will follow) they are a major health hazard.

Rats are destructive creatures chewing up pipes and damaging infrastructure, they are also clever and tough, the ultimate survivors.   Millions of tons of poison is used to try and control their numbers, even super-toxic new brands have failed to eradicate them – throughout the world the poison also cause a massive amount of damage and fatalities to children and wildlife.  It’s a bad end for them too, so a search has been ongoing for a successful and more humane way to control Mr.Rat.

Amazingly this is just what’s happened – Loretta Mayer is a Buddhist scientist working in America and who has aimed her work  not at killing rats but stopping them from breeding.  She’s now developed a contraceptive that is 100% effective and has seen rat populations collapse when they’ve been given it.   It’s food based and rats love it, they go on living without side effects but cannot breed so the colonies collapse.  Other animals aren’t affected by it, even if a cat subsequently eats the rat it will not be harmed because the contraceptive is broken down and metabolized within a few minutes.

This miraculous invention will transform lives especially in third world countries where rats are a much bigger problem than they are here.  So, it’s going to be goodbye to Mr. Rat and then Poppy will be able to retire.