Charming creatures?

Leonard Shoulders was standing on a New York pavement when the ground beneath his feet cracked open. Down he tumbled into a 12ft hole - filled with rats. "He couldn't move, and the rats were crawling all over him," said his brother Greg White.¹ "He didn't scream, because he didn't want the rats going into his mouth." It took the fire brigade half an hour to rescue him.

For many people, this is their ultimate nightmare. But according to Maite van Gerwen, a Dutch scientist, we should be more relaxed about rodents.

"Why do we want certain animals around us and not others?" she says.² "Sewer workers are actually happy with the rat. The animals eat a lot of fat residue from the sewer, which prevents blockages. Rats are very good at recycling."

Although rats are commonly referred to as dirty, they are actually very clean.³ And although they have long been blamed for spreading the Black DeathA bacterial infection that killed as much as 60% of the population of Europe and 33% of the Middle Eastern population., a 2018 report found that lice and fleas on humans were mainly responsible.

Now scientists at Amsterdam's university are supporting a plan to make it a "rat city". This would involve special feeding areas in parks where people can get to know the animals.

The project is inspired by the Karni Mata temple in India, where over 15,000 rats are cared for. JainsFollowers of Jainism, an ancient Indian religion whose followers live a life of non-violence and non-attachment to worldly possessions. revere rats as reincarnations of humans.

Writing in The Conversation, Chelsea Himsworth argues that "we need to recognize that the city is an ecosystemA complex network of living things that rely on each other to survive. and that rats live here too". Rats pose a relatively minor risk to people, who should be educated not to fear them.

It is often said in Britain that you are never more than 6ft away from a rat. But another expert, Dr Dave Cowan, says that this is an exaggeration.⁴ Fewer than 0.5% of houses and flats have rats inside them, and only around 3% have rats outside.

He calculates that there are 10.5 million rats in the UK. On this basis, it would be truer to say that you are never more than 164ft from one.

Other statisticians say that rats in London outnumber people by more than two to one. But this is nothing compared to Chicago, where the figure is more than six to one.

In New York it is even possible to go on a rat tour. Kenny Bollwerk, who posts TikTok videos of rats in the city, says that people have come from as far away as Vancouver and Los Angeles to join him in looking for them.

Should we learn to love rats?

Yes: They have been unfairly classified as pests. They are cheeky, clean, intelligent animals that should be treated with respect - experiments have shown that they are better than humans at some tests.

No: Rats are highly destructive and always will be.  Because their teeth grow around four inches a year, they have to gnaw on things - from wood to lead - to keep them under control.

Or... We should at least tolerateTo put up with something unpleasant or annoying, them, as we do other rodents. Most people are fine with hamsters and gerbils, and there is no reason for rats to be treated any differently from them.