SYDNEY’S RATS

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 12

SYDNEY’S RATS

EVER-PRESENT DANGER Sydney City Council has once more engaged ■ in the discussion -of .the rat menace, which may fairly be asserted as a persistent danger to the health and the prosperity of, Sydney. Many people there have a vague idea that because the council employs a; few permanent rat-catchers, therefore, some > systematic attempt is always being maintained to limit the number of the rats, and to keep them in their'proper place. . But this is quite a delusion; The City Council rat-catchers take their daily and nightly toll; of rats to the university or the public analyst and get -the animals examined , for traces ,of bubonic plague. Ever since the last disastrous visitation, of . plague these precautionary methods have been kept up; but they, make no-difference to the number of the' rats, largely-: because that is impossible' without an elaborate and expensive plan of campaign. . : . 'i ' The late-Dr J. S. Purdy, as Public Health Officer, paid a great deal of attention to‘ this matter; and in a special report •he told' the council- that the difficulty of exterminating rats is duo to their extreme fecundity. Each female rkt may rear five litters a year with as: many as eight young, and there might be 680 progeny from one pair of rats in a year, he said.'. As ‘applied to Sydney; the result of this rapid rate of reproduction is that there are at the present time in and ’ around this city at least as many rats as human inhabitants. As' a ; matter : of fact, there are only 1,300,000 people in the metropolitan area, and the ! mbst' probable estimate of'the total rat ’population places it at close on 2,000,000. DAMAGE TO PROPERTY. In numbers alone the rat is r thus » formidable public enemy;. _ Also ■it is gifted with remarkable' intelligence, alertness, cunning, and a- /very- • long ' memory, and as it-has-an insatiable appetite, its destructiveness is almost unlimited. Dr Purdy’s estimate .was that each rat in Sydney eats material of various sorts to the value of at least Jd.per-day, which brings up.the total loss inflicted by rats iti Sydney tp about £1,300,000 for the year. . One firm estimates its loss from rats to.-£2 per-week regularly. ■ And! this hrm sets its hands to°storing awav rolls-of cloth ■ and furs at 1 o’clock in the afternoon to save them from these' ceaseless depredations. The great trouble is; that -the whole of the city underground is,opdn!country for the rats.. The old Tank Stream still runs . .under Sydney’s greatest shopping block—the area bounded by George street and Pitt stree_t v .Jvmg street and Market street—and its channel gives all the rats from the harbour front easv access into the heart of the city. Then the' lower levels of- the ground, under streets;, and buildings, are honey-bombed with _ channels ■ fpr gas, water, .and. electric light, and along all these the rats find their way, thus forcing a subterranean ■ entry into shops and warehouses. ,The_ only effective way, of "dealing with- this plague is to divide the city into blocks-.to isolate them, and to . attack the rats-in each area by wholesale lethal, methods—gassing and poisoning. This .is- th# method adopted with considerable .success during the plague scare, of, 1921. when the great ,r shopping block ■ mentioned above , was successfully; isolated and practically cleared of .infection. Within the last two months the City Council has been approached hy a firm of, “ rat exterminators ’’—Houghton and Byrne—with a suggestion that the “block” system should be reintroduced, that all tenants should; be induced to co-operate; with the city officials, and that-baiting and gassing on a large scale should be instituted, when all exits have been stopped,land preparations for a wholesale massacre, are complete. The City Council is hesitating on the score of expense, but one might well believe from the figure quoted above that it would be worth * good deal of money to get nd of the rats. -