A sharing by Ling Sing Lin
Many people hate rats, fear rats, myself included. Is this rational? Rats are perceived as being dirty and vicious, and they spread some diseases, the most well known being the plague, which in the 14th century caused the deaths of over one third of Europe’s population. Some other rat-borne diseases include leptospirosis, rat-bite fever and salmonellosis.
Rats are hunted and killed using methods like poisons, snap traps and glue boards, etc. None of the methods of killing them are humane.
Rodents
Rats belong to the rodent family. Other commonly known rodents are guinea pig, chinchilla, hamster, squirrel, beaver, capybara, prairie dog, etc. From this list, you can see that the poor rat is the most maligned and unloved rodent.
Is the rat of any use?
Rats do serve a purpose in the ecosystem. They are scavengers and opportunistic eaters. They will eat garbage. They are a source of food for snakes, owls, hawks, cats, dogs and other rodents.
Rat meat is a dietary staple in some parts of the world because of poverty or because of the ample supply of rats. Some of these countries are Africa, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Cambodia, China and Spain.
In parts of Cambodia and Africa (Tanzania and Mozambique), rats are used to detect land mines. Rats can even help to detect tuberculosis by sniffing sputum samples, and the positive samples are then rechecked using WHO endorsed confirmation tests. They do this in much less time than human technicians.
Pet Rats
The most common species of rat kept as a pet is the domesticated form of the brown rat, known as the fancy rat. Apparently, pet rats are easy to care for, have little odor, rarely bite, are affectionate and intelligent, easily learn new tricks, and they bond quickly with their owners. Contrary to reputation, pet rats are clean animals, spending more time grooming themselves than cats.
Rat Tales
- You must have read of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who rid the town of a large population of rats with his hypnotic music.
- There is a whole book titled Rats by Robert Sullivan, who studied the lives of rats in New York City by spending much time in a filthy alley close to Wall Street. He would take a spot next to the trash and wait and watch the rats, during rain as well, night after night, when humans sleep and rats roam. He surmised that rats live in man’s parallel universe, surviving on the effluvia of human society, living lives of quiet desperation, ignored or destroyed, but rarely studied, disparaged, but never described.
- As a child, my grandmother told me that in China, whenever they found a nest of newborn mice, they would swallow them whole, as treatment for asthma. I googled this for verification, and found that in Chinese folklore, pinkish, hairless and blind newborn mice are believed to be effective for the treatment of asthma.
- We used to keep some white mice in cages for my young niece and nephew, given to them by their grandfather who used them as experimental subjects in his microbiology laboratory. One day, we found newborn mice in the cage that were black in colour. We realized to our horror that black or brown mice must have entered the age and mated with the white mouse. That was the end of pet white mice in our family.
Conclusion
Being an animal lover, would I ever regard rats differently from most people? I realise that they are dirty and carry disease-causing microbes because humans hate them, so they have to hide in sewers and other disgusting places. As pets, they are clean and groom themselves.
But even after writing this blogpost, I will not change my stance towards rats. My only plea is to not use glue boards to catch pests and vermin. Glue traps cause prolonged suffering, as the animal struggles and the glue tears off their fur, feather or skin. Some break their bones or even chew off their limbs in a desperate bid to escape. Glue traps are completely indiscriminate, as any creature can be hopelessly stuck to these sticky boards.
All unwanted house guests are sentient beings. The only long term way to control the rodent population is to make it unattractive and inaccessible to them and to eliminate food sources.
lingsinglin
Dr Ling Sing Lin is a medical doctor by training. She worked in MOH HQ for many years, in policy making and administrative positions, until her retirement.
