Originally published at: Harm-free rat control in Phoenix, Arizona | Boing Boing
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“It’s a sweet milk and they love it. They absolutely love the taste of this stuff. They fight over it,"
I’m that way with pork chops, oh and tater tots.
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We rat fans appreciate this method of critter control!
I confess to resorting to murdering my ratly brethren from time to time when it has been unavoidable. This is a much better solution.
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There’re two fascinating chemicals involved here. At least fascinating to a biochem geek, the structures involved, and with no clear biochemical mechanism yet known (might it work on humans? there haven’t yet been any reported human trails). Together these compounds halt/kill male and female gametes; Triptolide and VCD
Here’s an unwarranted bit of population genetics pessimism: if some external rat variant (mutant) manifests which can pre-metabolise these compounds (some ramped up epoxide hydrolase maybe) then they will have an instant evolutionary advantage to pass on, (namely, they’ll be able to pass on an evolutionary advantage)
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A good horror movie about mutants could start out innocently like this.
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I first heard about this a few years ago, and I would love it to be available in Canada; I take no pleasure in putting out rat poison, but they proliferate at such a rate that things get out of hand very quickly.
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Can it then be reconfigured to account for such a mutation?
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Probably, but life, uh… finds a way, innit?
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This is great to hear.
As others have noted, rats are great pets. Some people are creeped out by the idea but are totally fine with hamsters. My response to this is that rats are a lot like hamsters, except substantially better in every conceivable way. Smarter, more sociable, more curious, and (quite objectively, natch) cuter and more fun.
Fun fact: of all rodent-related subreddits, r/rats is by far the most popular.
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When will Children of Mice and Men hit theaters?
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The article for triptolide mentions ‘severe toxicity’, which seems at odds with the tone of the story here.
Do you know if it’s a in-humans-but-not-in-rodents thing; or if they just mean ‘severe toxicity’ in the ‘too alarming for FDA approval of medical use on humans; but markedly less punchy than actual poisons’ sense?
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Yeah, I wondered about that exact thing too. The wikipedia page for triptolide didn’t even mention the (rodent) contraceptive function, directed instead at probably some ‘hail mary’ drug trial against pancreatic cancer and such. But one does wonder about the general side-effects of such a diverse set of epoxides, as they tend to be quite reactive and alkylating (ring strain and what-not), and therefore one could worry for the rats in the long run; however against killing them outright…?[shrug]. Yet another worry (i got a million o’ them!), given there’re bottles of “sweet milk” placed about, here’s hoping that the E.R.s know what to do when some human drinks a bunch of it.
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I couldn’t find anything in the article or on the company’s FAQ page about whether this could have any downstream consequences in the food chain. If domesticated cats get a little bit of extra birth control that may be ok, but a number of wild animals eat rats too. Do we know that this won’t harm owls, for example?
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With 3 years considered a fairly solid run for a healthy domestic rat; and attrition in the wild being markedly higher, it’s quite possible that there simply isn’t a long run for the rats. The article that mentioned toxicity wasn’t specific on whether it was some nasty acute effect or something unacceptable in a human who might be expected to last another 40 years; but which will be subtle or irrelevant in the short term. That said, given the near total lack of control over dosage, I do have to wonder just how generous the window between ‘enough for contraceptive effects’ and ‘acute toxicity’ is; unless you are really saturating the place with feeding stations I’d imagine that some rats get significantly more than others. Also didn’t mention how long the stuff persists either in the body or in the environment; and whether it bioaccumulates or not.
I suppose it’s normal for oncology researchers to treat the impact of their patients being eaten by predators or scavengers as a distinctly secondary concern; but it seems like a potential issue here.
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Username checks out 
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Agreed. This is very tempting.
I’d take the bait, but an ongoing $40/month/station seems like a lot, no?
Well, I’m paying about $20 a month for poison, so yes, it would be twice as much, but the peace of mind might be worth it.
well, and in theory, it’d be cheaper in the long run because fewer rats. i do wonder about the effects on other wildlife, but then poison probably has its own issues too
i sometimes see rats running around on the power lines, and i’m always curious which squirrel they paid off to let them up there
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