and that is all we have time for right now, but coming up next step film looks again at why humans think about of the station so that if you can, i'm on. you can just make another thanks so much for watching the long voyage through the ocean. another how well was accounts for a long time, they had to be humans on the journey. now the trenches has become very protective of wales and tassels. the results of the ocean conservation start september full. i'm dw the

new world a weeks as the sun sets over big cities. the world of wretch, a world that a shadow, humans for e. rats of the stuff of horror stories and urban minutes often smoking our disgust and fears. their scene is dirty, aggressive and devious carriers of deadly diseases. and they are everywhere. many feel like they already know more about this animal than they want to. but what do we really know about our unpopular neighbors? the

a large scale research projects around the world are looking at the behavior of rats in big cities. and one of the 1st was a model project launched in vancouver, the canadian red capital that allegedly boost the highest rank population. chelsea who's worth a pioneer of modern rank research set out in 2010 to answer some basic questions. what are the things that interest me when i started the vancouver rock project is how little we know about rats. and i really wondered why that was the case. why these animals that live amongst us since the dawn of civilization, we understand so little. and i think the 1st is that they're a little distasteful or maybe not as glamorous as, as some of the other animals that scientists could choose to study. so if you have the option to choose between a rat or gorilla, you might not choose the rach,

i think the 2nd is, is exactly this issue of co existence that we've lived with them for so long. we think, oh, we maybe we know everything there is to know about them. and i think the final thing is our, our attitude toward the science of rats and rap management that previously had been considered really a blue color occupation. something you just get rid of. and only now are we recognizing yes, rats or an animal, a wildlife population, just like polar bears just like salmon. so we really were wanting to understand the basics. where to wrap populations look like in modern cities, how many rats are there in each block? how do they behave? and more importantly, what diseases do they carry? the goal is a future where humans can coexist with rats, with his few health risks and fears as possible. that means,

questioning previous believes and taking a complex approach to the question of living with the rodents. the scientists with the armageddon project have already begun to expose the secret lives of powers as rach what's on on, on it's 100. this is a very small young wrapped up in the heats what's known as a brown wrap to 6. it's scientific name is rach as nor vega course and it's the right most commonly found in european cities and in paris. specifically, this one is perhaps 2 weeks old. she's just starting to venture out of her bureau, mazda southfield. this won't tell you. oh, so like a real, ha, uh, don't group. i mean, it's true that this rat, one of the common rat, also known as a sewer rap, is quite typical in urban environments. and then you not, it was that causes conflicts because it's usually considered dangerous. and dirty

girl fits it on anybody. key question that i commit on anybody don't sure. what are people there is no denying that it can post health risk who didn't have room on but it's also an animal that co exist is with us and the roof was it is something you meant. oh, there was increased interest in it, and when you, and even a growing goodwill towards this little animal, not a while ago, the present to jump video. so the, do this have to tell you about, keep you, that'd be cool. is full of mazda to push on like you drove off the phone or the keystone by the community. from me. the armageddon project is an attempt at answering fundamental biological questions that have alluded us to push us. it's a 1st for parents or even for friends in general. there's never been a research project that has some studies, rats in the city or paris in particular on film. another important topic is health care. how high is the risk of rats transmitting diseases in paris?

here too, we have no information, no data, no, no idea, really the ill found a pleasant subject, keep almost sheets. and finally, the 3rd topic, which i also think is very important, is understanding why some people hate radcliffe, and others loved them. and how to better approach these differing rad opinions and images. it is the most difficult. uh, do you have the . ringback the york in northern england was a key part of the roman empire. and sewell archaeologist david norton is using 1000

year old bones to investigate what rats can tell us about human history. good speakers where there has been people there. oh, we spin rach, who always liked the idea of using small and i'm like the remains to tell kind of the big picture stories about human history, tiny wrap things making so we send to meet us now i'm kind of getting them from lots of different places and getting together a story of what they can tell us about connectivity between different human supplements, the nature of the basic voltage it's tracing when, when they were understanding the presence is behind that, using those processes to understand here the end of the roman empire,

the development of medieval trade, the human side and then trying to understand how much of a role they could if they didn't take the. 2 researches in hills and key are also studying the complexity of human rac relations. scientists want to develop a good rep management system for the finish capital and to leave for use of the city use rach, want rats are often seen s harmful on, on useful. but then again, we have pet rents and laboratory rats. so racks are they have multitude of meanings in human cultures to the present day relationship between you mentioned, rats, is, is quite heated and, and it's always important to look at history and look at the past relationship in order to understand why we have present day conflicts. and discussions often times

people compare rats to humans and. 2 say that right uh quite similar to us the. 2 the using key project is led by to almost i below even though the cities rad problem is small, in comparison to other cities, either those team is ambitious and is taking an unconventional approach. when you look at the human evolution, kind of like the stories that, that's what, whatever is the situation, humans are able to add up to a mutual standpoint. and the address i see very much of a similar situation. so the way this thing with the rest is that how well they can take each situation and thrive. you and then the rest and going laboratory records to which i've been study $450.00. yes. for different good bike bio medical uses. a

lot of the kind of like medical advances that we have because your human lifespan has us as long as we get to the time of the kind of like medium. so for us to kind of like sacrifice their lives for the for the find the so we know that the rest of them are scared of everything new. but these look like the features new for become scared of everything you. but they quite quickly learn what the status and what is, what does come like. it makes any sense of life and human environment. so going to like it's more difficult to say and it's due to the rules of such and such, all right? but makes it very interesting, some kind of like in order for the plan,

which is quite a few the understand me, lots of different unemotional learning around. for example, on the truck place up the we had mice truck. so going to buy balancing me last direct trucks, but they also the smaller the bins and again on here you can see on these truck plays, we have red trucks. so we know the address, i'm moving around here and there is maybe one of the barrels inside the stone wall here. so they're running from the here and then moving around the car caught an issue. so then we're setting up to come over here to see where that can work to make sure that the so it's a rough on whether it's the individual russell ranch are very social animals. they bring food to the nations of weak family members. and when forced to choose between rescuing a fellow right and a piece of shots that experiments show that rats will usually choose to help

the these cities aren't alone. the team in berlin is also interested in the parallel worlds of rach, they're working to assess the use of rank poison in the city sewers. for decades, berlin is bunk ranch with rogue dentist sides with severe consequences for the environment. 2 but no one knows that the pesticides are the right approach. and if it makes sense to guard the city with industrial amounts of rent poison. yeah, i'm the fossils clear. please now started our research project, right? control and sewers. we 1st had to catch at least 60 animals from different populations around berlin to create a basis for genetic analysis to see if the animals are related in the additional

language and switch huffman on that and so connected to them. and then we have very little a prior knowledge about wild wraps of mine just got a ton the most s s last if was of condemning the last one had the most pressing off or offline. we had to meet the strict requirements for approval as an animal experiment, and it took us a long time to find the right trap. it had to be animal se, which is a very small market recruiter today we're placing and beating the traps. and so that the animals can get used to them often. once the traps have been accepted, we trigger them and then we'll catch some grabs for genetic testing. we met, we used the thermal imaging cameras and wildlife cameras to select the to best message for above ground and underground would i see the 5 as me told him. oscar viewed. 2 the,

the vancouver researchers have already reached some surprising conclusions. in the most problematic district where apartment blocks are built on a great branch move within clearly defined territories that has some interesting consequences. the 1st phase was sort of a fax finding mission about what the health risks are that routes, how it was in think hoover's downtown east side. so really understanding where are the routes and what diseases they carry. 2 we caught 700 rats and identified something like 1200 related relationships. so parents off spring full siblings, have siblings of all of those relationships. there was only about one percent of them that were in different city blocks. and that was quite surprising to see how little they move between blocks and of rats don't move between those blocks. they

don't spread their diseases with them. so what we found using left those for roses as an example with that disease is found in some blocks and not others because those blocks are really reflective of family groups. they are reflective of transmission being within families. and that in different blocks, you have different families that just don't come into contact with each other and roads. interestingly enough, also sort of mark the territory for these families. this is my block. you stay in your block. and there's very little contact between the raf families. if we know that rats don't move much among city blocks, you know that your neighborhood rat really is your neighborhood rat. and you can target your management approaches to the scale of the city block. the don't the don't catch you. we often use this method with rodents in our research on

that to. yeah, we attach an ear tag with a number i'm, i'm sure the overall said don't mention it's like an id card. you'll see because we can then find them again. i'll screw up the real hucks, we release them, and thanks to this tag, we know exactly who is moving to where, when and how with the help of all the traps we put up call, big football. they killed all summer the objects put on that it shouldn't take me to say is it's a very precise technique for finding out how many animals are in a particular place. yeah. and then you more on, on the other to researchers in your god trying to discover how long rats have been adapted to humans. black rats commonly known as house rats on the focus human trade, urban ization,

and large empires helped spread them around the world. but they are now considered extinct in many parts of europe. we know that the black trapped spread across the room, and it said by around the 1st century, d. c. first century a to there's good reason to think it was present in the mediterranean for quite a long time before that. but right now we really don't know when the search is kind of concentration of evidence. so that threats turning up in ocoee logical human settlements comes from the end as probably civilization, and from that they may have strep beyond the reach. and so around the same time, we start to see black threats arriving in mesopotamia settlements. it's another arrangement around the same time. we're starting to see cities develop and those quite a bit of tre, documented between those regions. and i find this quite fascinating because rats spread around the world by human trait connections. and they're also dependent on

the kind of settlements we have like new york is a big city. and the roman period it became less important. the smaller, less well connected. and then it became the biggest city again into the viking age . and you can see wraps mirror and what i think is happening here with this kind of rise and full and then rise again. front populations. is it that tracking nature of the human, this economic system in the brown room is generally thoughts is spread across here in the 18th century. although there are some suggestions that might have been present perhaps in the 15. so 16 century. but the majority of you, based must be on documentary records, is that it's bad in the 18th century. one of the main things that people will think about if you say wraps in history or perhaps in ok, elegy is the idea that wraps with the main need to blame for the spread of pain in the task, particularly in the black death. this often comes across is a very polarized debate. you'll see news headlines saying it wasn't wraps up through that and the rats,

and they're all so many historians who follow the traditional line for many epidemiologists are interested in history for that matter. who is a push back against that and it's very keen on the traditional views. so it's often seems to be this kind of heated debate. either it was all about rach, everywhere or alternative the it shouldn't really be about wraps. it will, it was something different. but i think the real question of away from the headlines, the real question is how much of a factor was the presence of wraps in the way that historically, kinetics developed. if you took the rats away, which we still have had a panoramic on the scale. if the black death, i suspect wouldn't destiny. but that's something which is still very much bye to or when it comes to human risks associated with rats. there were a couple of really interesting things that we found. one is not all ras,

terry disease, and actually the number of rats isn't proportional to the disease risk. so we found some huge call in ease of rats that were totally clean. didn't have any of these bacteria and viruses and other smaller colonies that were just loaded. so that was really important because our public health principles are based on the assumption that then if there's more rats, there must be more disease. but that's not true at all. the association between rats and disease is much more complex than that. and then if you do come into contact with a rat, yes, i think the answer is they absolutely have the potential to pass at different bacteria and viruses that make people sick. but the risk for different people is not equal. in some parts of the world,

people are more exposed to rats and more exposed to disease carrying rats. we know that these diseases are more common in countries that are less developed. but then even with in a city and this was really interesting, different populations or neighborhoods are more at risk. so we were really focused on the downtown east side, which is called vancouver's porous postal code. and that's because it has this confluence of factors. it has dilapidated buildings in adequate infrastructure and sanitation, all of which can attract rats. and then you've got people that aren't adequately house. they're on the street. they might be using drugs, they might be doing sex work. and so they have lots of opportunity to come into contact with wraps and layer on top of that that a lot of these individuals have other infections, like h, i, v, aids,

hepatitis that decrease their immune system and make them more vulnerable. so when you take all these factors together, you do certainly have certain populations in a city that will be more vulnerable to rats than others. no. so you know maggie do as part of the arm to get in and things to our partner. the pastor institute before we do have a kind of inventory of the pathogens that paris rats can transmit. and then we know, for example, that was done preparation wraps and carried up those derosa associate. but we don't really know whether it poses any danger to humans or how high the risk of infection is going to. it's the are radically possible that rats transmit disease. although in paris, we don't yet know if that's the case, and there is no risk for the average parisian going about their everyday life. the problem is the most of you trust

what else we found were that rats also carried a lot of human bacteria and viruses. so they act almost like little sponge in the when we think about the rich, the only easiest which leaving the sewage system. and if you kind of like, if there's a place where you're going to expose this even public sense, sewage system is pretty, pretty much. so i think when we think about sort of like publish and spread the probably medium all pets and spread from rats to humans properly a huge amount of purpose and break for a few minutes to read. i like these, these come but turn around the idea of human being, the one who gets solved, but this is these from of the animals. it's very most of the way around because it's the, it's a humans work. and we spreads about the tense around the rest of this book because

i believe you all the cycle of, of, of products, categories from human side. but humans continue from brett so, so that's a bit of a price that the roads have to pay when they are so close to us. i am especially looking at bird feeding in helsinki city because nowadays in present day have sinking bird feeding is really up the heart of the wrecked conflict. food feeding is really, really important in finland. it's something that has been done from the 19th century, own woods, people. it hasn't be many people want to feed, but it's bought. city officials have forbidden it in many places. and this can cause debates and heated discussions between neighbors because both feeding is seen or something that can benefit to interact. birds being fed

is a problem everywhere. it attracts rats. and once they show up counter measures are never far behind. but scientific research into the long term effects of rec, control has been lacking. it's unclear if it actually reduces any health risk. the no one's actually done the studies to see if trapping and killing wraps reduces disease risk. so we actually, we did that experiment. so we looked again taking this bacteria left to spiral, which we already knew kind of how it worked. and we measured how many rats had left to spiral before our study. and then we went in there and we simulated a pest control intervention. we then trapped and said ok, do these rats that are, are remaining, do they still have disease?

and they did. but what was more amazing is they had more disease then the rats before we did the trapping. so the pest control intervention, which was supposed to reduce our disease risk counter intuitively increased the amount of disease in this right population. so why might we see an increase that's the opposite of what we would hope to see, right? we would hope that you might remove routes and the risk would go down. but what we came to understand is that when you remove these individuals, you might change how they interact with each other. so social dynamics, if you remove some wraps, maybe that changes how they fight and bite and try to get food resources. and when you spread a bacteria among wraps through fighting and fighting, well, if you change those dynamics, you change how that spread that really taught us that. so the, the current war on rats to get rid of as many routes as possible may be

causing the problem that it's trying to prevent. i think the answer is changing the way we see the problem. the i love way too much is visit the of all, i'll make you don't. i admit that before working on the armageddon project, i just, i was one of those people who had a lot of prejudice against rad z. i would even say that i basically had a phobia who's a deep fear and dissipated for rats. but as i've learned more about their nature, i've learned whatever remarkable animal they are. it's been a journey of self discovery through my encounters with rags to

a novelty public know huh. what was it about sending see what i will assist you in to do this, this for now? this is perfect. it's a great specimen of rochester, viji castle view. it's also called brown right, and lives in the city for to have a round is the typical color. although there are individuals with very dark or very light for but this one is really a classic example. this is the rep we all know the street right in the city. 60, this individual is an adult. it broke off at the body is another easily recognizable feature, the length of the body longer than the tail. quote, what we have here is a beautiful adult female rad as nerve heat because skill sets in best. and then i do have 2 silver heaters and memo. don't use, you know, the most in the home can even as a biologist and i have to admit that i knew very little about this animal. and that i had many, subconscious, unfounded, least about the rad boomers police were maybe even childhood memories. that's my mother has eroded phobia to it, and then i was one of those people who were afraid of raps because like,

without really knowing why. so usual, to build you how me so. okay. and most of the, this old views, surprisingly wide spread in the collective consciousness of western societies even seems to be a common denominator of western culture. regularly stirred up by the media and pass down from one generation to the next. rats are seen as harbingers of june and a universal symbol of danger and just toby at the job due to the festa non difficulties. so it was his deputy. huh. so the media always plays a role in shaping ideas and it's no different with right from the table. it's interesting with the function both as witnesses and producers of social ideas, the mutual during the siege of paris early $1870.00 pairs, with some circle by the prussian army,

and completely cut off from the supply of could send you to have a putting. janelle put the parisians, began to eat and meek from animals. they had never eaten before, most, including route because any more of it, it's mostly by just got all the legal pulls from village on. that is a rep. market was even set up and yet they are so parisians could continue to eat, need to put, could it buys up to school, to the level this really left its mark on the french can install this. this moment was on the right was transformed the interns to meet on people's plate beyond actually the us it. 6 the, the information newspapers of there are mentions on that force that dates back to the late 19th century. oftentimes ledge by c t o. officials and there were many wrapped force of the sofa in order to get rid of wraps from here.

the sink and people were encouraged to do have a war on rats or to try to get rid of threats, for instance, even magazines, for their seas. so there were lots of this kind of almost per book on the image cheese that people could see the know see, this is the love. this was on the nice spectacle was imported from great britain in the 18 seventy's, 6 rap beating up were dogs and rats. were placed in an arena, the rattle drove the shuffle to his st. paul, i think you know how the dogs were trained to attack and massacre the trained wrap . this will get a slice a wraps have suffered a historic tradition of cruelty to the new stuff. the. 2

the media, what do you, let's do, one of which is this via either the original motivation for our project was to learn more about the environmental risk using rodents, toys and stuff. i'm anti coagulant and have generally been used. you have to kill rafa speaking, but since these are blood clotting inhibitors, which have the advantage that they have a slightly delayed effect. so they ride some just enough poison, you are 5 at the same time, these substances are persist in their own value, a cumulative and toxic, and which means that they accumulate in the environment on end are toxic to other living organisms in industry. and in recent years, we've been shocked to learn that the act of substances from wrapped poisons with can already be found in many other wild animals that look like fish for kansas. our . and what's really shocking is that 100 percent of the fish caught in rivers and

the predators that eat these fish, one more also contaminated. for example, for aquatic life, the main source of pollution is to sewage system. finding object waste water is not cleans to remove anticoagulants from the water. these trace substances are so small that they can still be found in the trade in wastewater offers of kids into sidney, south carolina, spanish board stuff. or there's a study where a car placed in ponds where purified wastewater from sewage treatment plants was discharged. and 80 percent of the liver samples contained at least one act of substance from wrapped points. and then the pool meant to you, munitions. i am book stuff austin, how difficult stuff was. i've shockey and, and i'm just shocking of them. but 5, we have to ask ourselves, how can we reduce this environmental impact to convince him to how can we prevent these toxins from accumulating further than the sum of our tests. so alarming

results to other animals reacts to the poison in the same way as rats do and they die from internal bleeding. yeah, something has to be done, but off in vancouver and in b. c as a whole, there's very much a move, a cultural move to go away from chemical means of controlling rats because of the negative impacts on other wildlife. so we certainly don't want to have, you know, beautiful apples falling from the sky, dying of rat poison. to pull some down, i keep going back to unit keep goods cause i choose to choose one team from the armageddon project is looking into the use of her dentist sides like the rep points center. they found that certain rad populations have developed a tolerance to which means that the use of poisons, of one might have lethal effects on others. be caesar while having no effect on some rags when they both agree with these thoughts. and if you don't leave message, you are ultimately of no use in trying to stop me the threat of rat. so need me to

that because of the on this culture and i call it this sort of interest b, c's genocide, really it's, it's one species trying to wipe out another species and i think that's it's, it's not good science and i think it's not good culturally the bunk, it is not only the war against rach that runs through the history of mankind. the the rack has also been used by people and countries as a symbol of their enemies in wars. just ok, trade and energy. whoever's east, the country producing public and rats often come to represent the enemy,

something that people want to get rid of. for instance, in, in soviet cartoons reps where used to represent a germany and nazi germany or nazi party. also in, in nazi germany to square represented sometimes with the images of wraps. so it seems that it's, it's all over the, in the me, off of the nation or what is perceived to be the enemy of the nation. but the ranch images slowly improving. rats are being stuffed as part of the power as project for the permanent exhibition at the natural history museum, to return them to their place in the animal kingdom. and to bring them closer to the general public as regular animals in

a few free environment. say like c daniels on a yeah. you know when you mash i'm keep it which will do help in with them all. there's actually been a new image emerging of the rad, in recent years for joe and you with the well known animated film rattle to he was very helpful. it was the 1st time a rach surfaced from the sewers. it's moving away from the image of darkness, an evil odd it didn't. instead we got a rat that's intelligent, funny, likable, curious and hard working. if you call that, you know, looking at the placing read to, to a, if a rat who becomes, and few excellent cups in the kitchen, really made a difference. but ultimately helps to shift public opinion more is especially among the young didn't she didn't was in the i think we do need a perspective change on rats. i think if we thought of them differently as sort of

our urban neighbors and that we need to manage those relationships, i think that i think that those approaches would go along way. and so i think that sort of perspective shift as rats as part of makes a big difference and how we manage them and improve the health of our cities altogether. wraps, do tell us quite a bit about people and they also say something about how we treat our cities, how we manage our ways. i mean, they are reflective of, in a lot of ways, our own actions or inaction, the oven, and the move in, even if the needs to control rats remains. and especially in the cities, it has to eventually be done differently than by using active substances that stay in the environment from life. and if it turns out that using or dental site and sewer is, is not effective within the next step should be to band poisoning my vendors. but i

took the, the built it to all the tools you, we always released the animals where we caught them or very close to the trap in which they were cod, silva thought, but this is very important. it helps to limit the behavioral stress caused by releasing the animal somewhere else. i strongly pulled off tomorrow is because the optimal, the shape of sun, of to, to the tools they're just accepted. you just have to accept that they are, they're supposed to prevent them from causing problems and limit the risk of evil and otherwise try to co exist with them. if we, for example, reduce the amount of food that is constantly thrown away in our modern cities and we would have far fewer rats along with them when the local yano cupid fee. there

is a direct link between the presence of rabble styles and for waste management, who been and poor city administration who loves you politics are never far away. right, sir, ultimately a political issue. expanding cities, waste wills and ignorance help them spread. and since they can pose a health risk, especially to the weakest members of society or responsible approach to a healthy or co existence with rats is needed. after all, rad poison contaminates the environment, forming humans as much as anything else. but what's the solution? we the focus so much on the wrapped itself that we don't see all the complex interconnections it has with our daily lives. for example, the relationship between rats and garbage or do we look at the impact of rats on the urban poor?

so there's no point in going in and getting rid of the rats when the whole building is falling down and filled with garbage. instead, having by laws that hold landlords accountable for environmental sanitation is going to increase the overall living conditions in those facilities. and also as a secondary consequence, get rid of the rest. so that's a solution to a wrap problem. that is a policy solution. it's a beautiful kind of like big picture of how society also works. i know that in vancouver projects website fall, the best, the homeless people felt the contact with rats on on. and then kind of like it would be probably the wrong to say that the, that's the restful hold that the homeless people have contact with threats. that probably kind of like social problem if they offer less people. so there's not that much homeless people in, hey listen to you, which means that that supports humble that kind of like group which would be, would be called the rats and properly get there. got to like make it the basic

formats doesn't really exist. pretty much the only reason why rights come a controlled in house and give you some kind of like damage or infrastructure humans need to abandon the illusion of is imitating rach completely. it hasn't worked so far and there's no reason it will in the future. rats are part of the urban ecosystem. modern risk management needs a scientific contemporary approach. it's probably time to end the war on rach and overcome our age old fears. i wouldn't say that routes are dangerous. i think that our actions towards managing them make them more or less dangerous of what we have no choice but to co exist with rabbit school and to help us to accept them and make it as easy as possible. we need to better understand their behavior. i'm optimistic that it's getting

better. the mushrooms save the world. kendra one to many people are convinced they can't. the country has a sliding mushroom industry conditions. there are ideal for cost of icing that 2 choices. unhealthy alternative to me, you could have a visit there in georgia with the, with an estimate. it shows here for you and the shelter for the veto africa in fuzzy minutes on the w. flying high yesterday in the

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you're watching the w news live from the land is around launch has multiple attacks in the west bank, palestinian medic say at least 9 people are dead, is ready. all me says it's still carrying now. so for a sions in some northern towns also coming up on the program, japan braces for an extreme, ty, food, the call maker toyota says that suspending school domestic production is tied to intention, approaches the

and then you can just mckinnon. well.