Study: Rats Live in New York Subway, Avoid Traps, Like Food
It only took the NYC Department of Health and the Metro Transit Authority two years to conclude a study that says rats live in subway stations, are hard to catch/kill, and like to dine in subway stations' "refuse room."
Thank you, science. Where would we all be without helpful studies like this? More screwed than we already are, probably. According to the New York Times, this was the first study of its kind, and was commissioned to find out what can be done to curb rampant rat populations in New York's subway system. So, what can be done? The Times spoke to 86-year-old Solomon Peeples, former director of the Bureau of Pest Control Services, who offered this analysis: "We're no match for them, as far as I'm concerned. Man does not stand no chance." Coming from a man nearly as old as the subway, that's probably an accurate assessment.
The "refuse room" is a storage room for garbage in each subway station that obviously attracts rats. The rodentologist who lead the study, Robert M. Corrigan, called the refuse room "a restaurant" for rats, and said the current poisoning program should be expanded from a tracks only policy to include the refuse rooms. Luckily we don't have to worry about dazed, poisoned rats showing up on trains, as the paper goes on to quote a 1976 academic study that says, "rats with high blood pressure should not ride the subways too often or too long: the stress of noise, vibration, and crowding may kill some of them before their time." Science.