ABC News March 14, 2019

Our rats, ourselves: What the rise of rodents reveals about humans

Charlie Hamilton James/National Geographic
Rats raid a trash can in lower Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood. New Yorkers with uptown and downtown addresses dump enough trash on the streets for rats to be able to live out their lives less than 150 feet from where they were born. People with Midtown addresses-along with commuters and visitors to restaurants, theaters, and Times Square-provide ample edible trash for rat populations there as well.

"How rats became an inescapable part of city living" is part of National Geographic’s special-edition, single-topic issue on "Cities: Ideas for a Brighter Future," available online now.

They attack pigeons, drag pizzas into subways and spread disease. They also potentially feel empathy and live in families in nearly every corner of the globe.

Charlie Hamilton James/National Geographic
Rats raid a trash can in lower Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood. New Yorkers with uptown and downtown addresses dump enough trash on the streets for rats to be able to live out their lives less than 150 feet from where they were born. People with Midtown addresses-along with commuters and visitors to restaurants, theaters, and Times Square-provide ample edible trash for rat populations there as well.

Love them or hate them, the story of human civilization is also the story of rats.

“I feel differently about them now,” said National Geographic contributor Emma Marris, who wrote about the human relationship to rats and our efforts to deal with them around the world for a special edition of the magazine in her article, "How rats became an inescapable part of city living." “Once you start seeing them as individuals, it’s harder to have that kind of blanket disgust reaction…each of them is just trying to make it in the world, just trying to live their little lives.”

(MORE: Cluster of rat-related disease discovered in Bronx section of New York, 1 dead)
National Geographic
April 2019 cover of National Geographic.

Marris went on a “rat safari” with a rodentologist in New York City, spoke to biologists in New Zealand, and observed a “rat hunt” in Washington D.C. with a company that uses trained dogs to kill the animals.

Many of the experts Marris interviewed believe that there is an upward swing in rat populations as the planet becomes more urban. The fear is that an increased rat population could mean an increased risk of disease. At the root of the rat problem in urban areas is a problem of sanitation.

Charlie Hamilton James/National Geographic
A bundle of dead rats is the result of an hour of work for terriers named Raptor, Hula, Derby, and Minx; the dogs killed 31 rats that night. Minx once killed 17 adult rats in 10 minutes, working alone. The dogs are in high demand and work several nights a week across Washington, D.C. Onlookers often cheer them on.

“It’s a story about how we project our own failures onto the animals around us,” said Marris. “Because in the city, we do this by throwing our trash everywhere and then [blame] the rats for coming to eat it.”

(MORE: Mold, lead paint, rats: Deteriorating conditions in private military housing, survey shows)

New Zealand is attempting to eradicate rats from the country completely in an effort to save its native bird populations.

Charlie Hamilton James/National Geographic
Specially trained Patterdale terriers- an alternative to poisons that can endanger birds-kill rats in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of the nation's capital. "All they want to do is kill rats," Scott Mullaney, co-owner of Unique Pest Management, says of his enthusiastic dogs.

Scientists are also working on creating genetically modified rats that could theoretically spread infertility genes among different populations and lower birth rates. Marris believes, however, that this type of intervention is still a ways off.

Charlie Hamilton James / National Geographic
Adaptable and smart, rats of several species have evolved to thrive in major cities-yet the sight of a rat scurrying across West Broadway can make even the most hardened urbanite jump. Many humans find rats frightening and revolting, even though rats and people have occupied shared living spaces for thousands of years. New York rats are primarily Norway (or brown) rats. Their ancestors lived in the wild in northern China and Mongolia, were established in parts of Europe by 1500, and then followed Europeans across the Atlantic Ocean by the 1750s.

“Even if they get it ready, the global society has to decide how are they going to regulate this and who is going to decide if it’s okay or not to release genetically modified animals into the wild,” she said.

“We make the rats the bad guy,” said Marris. “But it’s always the choices humans have made…that have been the problem.”

This story is a collaboration between National Geographic and ABC News, whose parent company is Disney.