Man vs. Vermin

Mick Clout, a professor at New Zealand's University of Auckland's School of Biological Sciences, successfully ended an 18 week campaign to kill Razza, a rat which had been released on a remote uninhabited island. Clout planned to hunt Razza down in order to measure the level of effort needed to eradicate harmful rats from islands. Over the course of the four-month chase, Razza evaded everything from peanut butter-laden traps to rodent-sniffing dogs, all while wearing a radio tansmitter that prevented him from permanently giving scientists the slip. Clout and colleagues were amazed at Razza's elusiveness, noting that at one point he left the island altogether, swimming 1200 feet to a neighboring isle. Despite their difficulties, they have released another rat in the same area, wanting to make sure that Razza wasn't some sort of flukey Rambo-rat. In the end, they hope to learn information that will be helpful in eradicating nascent rat populations that threaten to establish themselves in protected areas.

To me, this is one more brick in the massive wall of rat legends, which all boil down to the sad truth: despite the best efforts of humans, rats continue to thrive pretty much wherever they damn well please. Is there a city in the world that has eradicated rats? Certainly there are healthy rat populations in every major urban area, despite all our efforts to control them. My advice to Clout? Quit releasing rats. This is starting to smack of Jurassic Park.

For the complete news story on Razza:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051021/ap_on_sc/rat_race;_ylt=AtYTf0YJ8.dtgsyu1N.UWsMPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
For a brilliantly-written account of rats and their impact on human history:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582344779/102-5458229-9180921?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance