New York's Rat Populations Are Evolving Into Different Neighborhood Breeds
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – New York is a city of diverse humans, and a Fordham University grad student team has discovered it may be a city of diverse rats as well. A study by five researchers found Manhattan’s “uptown” and “downtown” rats are genetically different, as are “West Village” versus “East Village” rats.
Full article here.
Further proof we live in a shithole: the city’s massive population of rats has evolved into different neighborhood breeds. You read that right. While right now we’re limited to Uptown, Downtown, East Side and West Side rats, we're not far from well established Upper East Side rats, Finance rats, Chelsea rats, East Village rats, Harlem rats, and hell, I’d wager even a Brooklyn rat. Of course this is happening. Why wouldn’t rats have evolved based on their geographic spreading across the island of Manhattan? Long after we’re all dead from disease, war, asteroid, famine or North Korean missile, the rats will run this city in our stead. Who knew that the greatest representation of our city’s state would be the 1986 classic, An American Tail?
The New York City rat is a force to be reckoned with. For years, the city’s tried to put them down. We curse their every footstep and breath; and each time one scuffles out from beneath a bush or trash bag we wonder how best to defeat our mortal enemy. But this recent news of their evolution is only further proof that we will never win. We can try to poison them, trap them, run them over with subways, render them impotent, but none of it matters. While we try to extinguish their very existence they only grow stronger. Rats are just a part of this city. They’re an intricately woven part of its genetic code. New York is not New York without the rodents that lurk behind every corner. New York is not New York without the vermin that eat the food covered faces of young ones. New York is not New York without the swarming mass of mobile bubonic plague dispensers that use our subway lines like Route 66.
In the city’s most recent attempt to win the war against the furry vermin, Mayor Bill De Blasio announced in July a $32 million plan to reduce the rat population by 70 percent. Since then in Manhattan, parents have complained that rats have taken over parks in the Upper West Side, with some residents saying the animals have attempted to jump into their children’s strollers.
They even jump in strollers now!
P.S. The fact that there’s a giant swarm of rats under 34th street is the least surprising news of all time. That area of the city is a literal and figurative swamp; just the worst of everything.
