Non-native house mice are to be removed from Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean to protect the wandering albatross and other endangered seabirds, in the world’s largest eradication programme of its kind. Mice accidentally introduced on to the remote island by 19th-century seal hunters have thrived in warmer and drier conditions over the past […]
Tag: rats
So You Think You Can Dance? Rats Can Bust a Move, Too, Study Finds
Do you ever worry that you’re not the best dancer and that you just can’t move to the beat? You may need to be even more self-conscious. A new study finds that even rats can get down. Research recently published in Science Advances found that rats are capable of bobbing their heads along with a […]
‘You’ve got to remove every rat’: the race to protect Round Island
As the boat weaves between the jagged rocks of the Scilly archipelago off the coast of Cornwall, Round Island, uninhabited but for a lonely Victorian lighthouse, comes into view. Those on board preparing for their visit are not armed with cameras and binoculars but with buckets of toxic cereal bait and rat traps. When signs […]
England’s action to ban glue traps is a stirring victory for animal protection
With the recent passage of a bill that gained unanimous support in the House of Lords, England has joined a handful of countries and a host of companies and institutions around the world that have banned glue traps. For mice and rats, the traps’ primary targets, who are so often excluded from society’s moral reckoning […]
Rats May Not Be As Dirty As We Thought, According to New Study
Rats often have a bad reputation for being dirty and carrying loads of diseases. However, according to a new study, these preconceptions may be unfair as they were found to carry no more pathogens than other mammals. In a study by Georgetown University, they examined 3,000 mammal species and looked for how many diseases they […]