Latest news with #Sinia
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
More bad news for rat-infested cities: Climate change is making it worse
More rats: that's the latest indignity that climate change is dumping on major cities around the world, including in Canada's largest city, according to a new study from a group of global rodent and public health scientists. Growing rat populations are correlated with rising temperatures driven by global warming in at least 11 major cities across the world, according to the study. The cities seeing rat increases include Toronto, famously rat-prone New York City, and many other major centres like Washington, San Francisco and Amsterdam. The study's authors say it's a wake-up call for cities to move away from a whack-a-mole approach to dealing with rodent complaints. "I think every large city should have a dedicated team that focuses on nothing but rodents and the issues with rodents," said Jonathan Richardson, lead author of the study and an urban ecologist at the University of Richmond in Virginia. A rat in downtown Toronto. The city is working on a rat strategy. (Bruce Reeve/CBC) The study used data on public complaints and inspections about rats from 16 cities around the world. The 11 cities that saw significant increases in rats also experienced greater temperature increases over time, though that correlation doesn't prove the temperature caused the increase. Cities with more dense human populations and more urbanization also saw larger increases in rats. The research comes at a time when rats have become a big issue in Toronto, which is seeing a large increase in rodent-related complaints after a brief decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. City officials are currently working on a new strategy to proactively deal with the rats. "Even when you leave city hall or walk around city hall, you can see the burrows in the tree wells. I've walked along one of the streets and a giant rat ran past me in the middle of the day," said Alejandra Bravo, a Toronto city councillor who proposed the successful motion to build a rat strategy. "I think people need to see action." Why are rats thriving? Rats are resilient and remarkably adaptable to different environments, says Alice Sinia, entomologist with pest control company Orkin Canada. It makes biological sense that warmer temperatures would be helping them out, for three big reasons. The harsh winter acts as a sort of "nature's pest control," with the cold killing rats every year. Climate change has led to milder winters in Toronto, allowing greater numbers of rats to make it through the season. Urban ecologist Jonathan Richardson, right, has co-authored a study linking climate change to a growth in rat populations in several major cities, including Toronto. (Jamie Betts) Meanwhile, the warmer seasons have become longer, and that's when the rats breed and reproduce. Sinia says that could further boost their numbers. And finally, climate disasters themselves could be bringing rats closer to people and buildings. Sinia used the example of the floods in Toronto in July last year, caused by a line of storms that dumped rain on the city in rapid succession in a matter of hours. Studies suggest that Canada will see more extreme rain, with warmer air able to hold more moisture that it will dump in short, severe storms. The flash floods last year caused nearly a billion dollars in insured damages, flooding basements, highways and transit stations across the city. But apart from the damage, floods also overwhelm the city's sewer system — which are teaming with rats that get displaced. Alejandra Bravo, a Toronto city councillor who represents the ward of Davenport, has pushed the city to develop a rat strategy to respond to rising rodent complaints and sightings. (Michael Wilson/CBC) "Now instead of the underground sewers, they [the rats] will come to the surface and when that happens … they're going to start occupying other areas," Sinia said. "They're going into people's homes, structures… and they're going to have an opportunity to reproduce very fast." But none of this means people will just have to resign themselves to a rat-filled future, the experts said. Keeping up the fight Richardson, the study author, said that they key was a proactive rat strategy that addressed the root causes of infestations. That's similar to what the Toronto council is working on, according to Bravo. City staff will look at food disposal, managing construction sites, new approaches like birth control and other ways to manage the rat population on a larger scale. Ultimately, Richardson says, cities need to put more money and resources into fighting rats, because simply tolerating them is not a good option. A person holds up a rat that had been caught in Washington, D.C, one of several cities along with Toronto, New York and Amsterdam that showed a correlation between rising rat numbers and rising average temperatures. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP) "They carry at least 50 known zoonotic pathogens and parasites that can make residents sick in cities," he said. A zoonotic infection or disease is one that can transmit between animals and humans. "They also have mental health impacts for residents where if you're living alongside rats regularly and see them in your daily life, you tend to have worse mental health outcomes and feel less secure in your environment. "If we can reassess how much tolerance we have for rats in our everyday daily life as we're walking around, maybe that applies some pressure to the city governments and advocates for more resources to knock these populations back."
CBC
31-01-2025
- Science
- CBC
More bad news for rat-infested cities: Climate change is making it worse
Social Sharing More rats: that's the latest indignity that climate change is dumping on major cities around the world, including in Canada's largest city, according to a new study from a group of global rodent and public health scientists. Growing rat populations are correlated with rising temperatures driven by global warming in at least 11 major cities across the world, according to the study. The cities seeing rat increases include Toronto, famously rat-prone New York City, and many other major centres like Washington, San Francisco and Amsterdam. The study's authors say it's a wake-up call for cities to move away from a whack-a-mole approach to dealing with rodent complaints. "I think every large city should have a dedicated team that focuses on nothing but rodents and the issues with rodents," said Jonathan Richardson, lead author of the study and an urban ecologist at the University of Richmond in Virginia. The study used data on public complaints and inspections about rats from 16 cities around the world. The 11 cities that saw significant increases in rats also experienced greater temperature increases over time, though that correlation doesn't prove the temperature caused the increase. Cities with more dense human populations and more urbanization also saw larger increases in rats. The research comes at a time when rats have become a big issue in Toronto, which is seeing a large increase in rodent-related complaints after a brief decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. City officials are currently working on a new strategy to proactively deal with the rats. "Even when you leave city hall or walk around city hall, you can see the burrows in the tree wells. I've walked along one of the streets and a giant rat ran past me in the middle of the day," said Alejandra Bravo, a Toronto city councillor who proposed the successful motion to build a rat strategy. "I think people need to see action." Toronto councillors push for rat reduction strategy Why are rats thriving? Rats are resilient and remarkably adaptable to different environments, says Alice Sinia, entomologist with pest control company Orkin Canada. It makes biological sense that warmer temperatures would be helping them out, for three big reasons. The harsh winter acts as a sort of "nature's pest control," with the cold killing rats every year. Climate change has led to milder winters in Toronto, allowing greater numbers of rats to make it through the season. Meanwhile, the warmer seasons have become longer, and that's when the rats breed and reproduce. Sinia says that could further boost their numbers. And finally, climate disasters themselves could be bringing rats closer to people and buildings. Sinia used the example of the floods in Toronto in July last year, caused by a line of storms that dumped rain on the city in rapid succession in a matter of hours. Studies suggest that Canada will see more extreme rain, with warmer air able to hold more moisture that it will dump in short, severe storms. The flash floods last year caused nearly a billion dollars in insured damages, flooding basements, highways and transit stations across the city. But apart from the damage, floods also overwhelm the city's sewer system — which are teaming with rats that get displaced. "Now instead of the underground sewers, they [the rats] will come to the surface and when that happens … they're going to start occupying other areas," Sinia said. "They're going into people's homes, structures… and they're going to have an opportunity to reproduce very fast." But none of this means people will just have to resign themselves to a rat-filled future, the experts said. Keeping up the fight Richardson, the study author, said that they key was a proactive rat strategy that addressed the root causes of infestations. That's similar to what the Toronto council is working on, according to Bravo. City staff will look at food disposal, managing construction sites, new approaches like birth control and other ways to manage the rat population on a larger scale. Ultimately, Richardson says, cities need to put more money and resources into fighting rats, because simply tolerating them is not a good option. "They carry at least 50 known zoonotic pathogens and parasites that can make residents sick in cities," he said. A zoonotic infection or disease is one that can transmit between animals and humans. "They also have mental health impacts for residents where if you're living alongside rats regularly and see them in your daily life, you tend to have worse mental health outcomes and feel less secure in your environment. "If we can reassess how much tolerance we have for rats in our everyday daily life as we're walking around, maybe that applies some pressure to the city governments and advocates for more resources to knock these populations back."
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Perfect rat storm': urban rodent numbers soar as the climate heats, study finds
Rat numbers are soaring in cities as global temperatures warm, research shows. Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam had the greatest increase in these rodents, according to the study, which looked at data from 16 cities globally. Eleven of the cities showed 'significant increasing trends in rat numbers', said the paper published in the journal Science Advances, and these trends were likely to continue. Over the past decade, rats increased by 390% in Washington DC, 300% in San Francisco, 186% in Toronto and 162% in New York according to researchers, who analysed public sightings and infestation reports. Some big cities, such as London and Paris, were not included because they did not provide the necessary data – but researchers said the findings would apply to many similar cities around the world. 'There'd be no reason to expect it to be different in other places,' said lead researcher Jonathan Richardson, from the University of Richmond in Virginia. In Toronto, one of the worst-affected locations, a 'perfect rat storm' has taken hold, with residents of Canada's biggest city staring down a surging population. 'When you walk the streets of Toronto, under your feet, deep in the sewage system, is a place teeming with rats,' said Alice Sinia, lead entomologist for Orkin, the country's largest pest control company. 'Increasingly we're flushing them out into open spaces – either through construction or floods – and they have to go somewhere.' Toronto city's helpline fielded 1,600 rat-related calls in 2023, up from 940 in 2019 and Orkin has also experienced a surge in calls. 'But the reality is, we don't know how big the population is because no one has ever really studied it formally,' said Sinia. Two Toronto city councillors, Alejandra Bravo and Amber Morley, last year called for a formal management plan as a way to blunt the crisis. 'It's a really critical quality-of-life problem when people have all of a sudden been confronted with rats coming into their home or into their business or their place of work,' Bravo told the Canadian press, adding that it had morphed into a 'kind of perfect rat storm'. Other cities with increasing rat populations included Oakland, Buffalo, Chicago, Boston, Kansas City and Cincinnati. The research focused on US cities, as well as Amsterdam, Toronto and Tokyo, as all of them gathered similar data on rat sightings. The research did not quantify the overall rat population, just relative increases in reports over time. Rising temperatures correlated with rising rat numbers, researchers wrote in the paper. As small mammals, rats struggle during winter, but in higher temperatures they can breed for more of the year and forage for longer. In Toronto, cold winters had long acted as 'mother nature's pest control', said Sinia, killing off swaths of the population. But mild temperatures had helped rodents of all kinds in the city to keep breeding. The fact that rat numbers increased fastest in cities that were warming fastest was 'the gloomiest outcome of the study', said Richardson. Last year was the hottest on record, with average temperatures 1.6C above preindustrial levels. Rats cause billions of dollars in damage by infiltrating buildings each year, and can transmit at least 60 diseases to humans, as well as affecting the ecology of other species living in cities. In regions where they are an invasive species, they do huge damage to biodiversity. Research suggests people who encounter rats frequently have poorer mental health. Globally, humanity's 'war on rats' costs an estimated $500m each year, according to the study. Tokyo, Louisville and New Orleans bucked the trend with declining rat numbers. In Tokyo, Richardson speculated that cultural norms and expectations of cleanliness meant people were quick to report rodent sightings. In New Orleans there has been educational outreach on how to prevent infestations. 'There are important lessons probably to be gleaned from those cities,' said Richardson. Researchers say the best pest management strategies involve making the urban environment less rat-friendly – for example by putting rubbish in containers, and not in bags on the street – rather than removing rodents that are already there. Despite thousands of studies on lab rats, little was known about wild urban rats, said Richardson. 'We need to know the battle that we're fighting. Pretty much every city announces that they have a war on rats.' Sometimes there can be up to 100 rats in a single colony, which usually occupies less than one block. 'I do not like rats,' he said, 'but there is something fascinating about an organism that has been able to spread over the world and live in such proximity to us so successfully.'
