says as an example with that disease is found in some blocks and not others because those blocks are really reflective of family groups. they're 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, right. and you can target your management approaches to the scale of the city blocks, the, the, the don't get you. we often use this method with rodents in our research of that to . yeah, we attach an ear tag with a number of mom. she don't want,

y'all 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 how 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 to it all summer the objects put on it shouldn't take me to say it's a very precise technique for finding out how many animals are in a particular place. yeah, they don't anymore. and on the order 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 track spread across

the run and in so by around the 1st century dc. so essentially, i think 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 perhaps turning up in archaeological human settlements comes from the industry civilization, and from that they may have strep beyond the region. so around the same time we start to see black threats arriving in mesopotamian settlements. it's another arrangement around the same time. we're starting to see cities develop and those quite a bit of trait documented between those regions. and i find this quite fascinating because rats spread around the world by human great connections. and they're also dependent on the kind of settlements we have weighing new york is a big city and 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 in that what i think is happening here with this kind of rise and full and rise again of rep populations. is it that tracking nature of the human, this economic system in the brown room is generally sorts of spread across here. in the 18th century, although there are some suggestions that might have been present perhaps in the 15th or 16th century. but the majority of you, based must be on documentary records is that it's bedding, 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 of the raps where the main need to blame for the spread of pain in the task, particularly in the black death. this often comes across as if every part of the rise to date, you'll see news headlines saying it wasn't wraps up through the, in the rats. and there are also many historians who follow the traditional line.

many epidemiologists are interested in history for that matter. who's a push back against that and a very keen on the traditional views. so it's often seen to be this kind of heated debate. either it was all about rats, everywhere or alternative the, it shouldn't really be about right. so to it was something different. but i think the real question of away from the headlines, the real question is, how much effect was the presence of wraps in the way that historically, kinetics developed. if you took the rats away, which we still have had upon demick 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 wraps 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 is more rights, 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, inadequate infrastructure and sanitation, all of which can attract rats. and then you've got people that are 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. the know, see what you do, such as part of the army. get in and thanks to our partner, the pastor institute, the but 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. radson carry 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 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 only problem is the most of us

what else we found were that rats also carried a lot of human bacteria and viruses. so they act almost like little sponges the when we think about the rich, the only easiest which lead me in the sweet 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 publishing spread, the probably medium all pets and spread from wraps to humans, properly a huge amount of focus in fred for a few minutes to read. i like these things, these come but turn around the idea of human steve, 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 have spreads about the tense, around the rest of this book, because i believe the off the cycle of overhead,

skeptical disease from human side better humans continue from breath. 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 food feeding, inhabiting q 60, because nowadays in present day has thinking 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 on which people it has engaged. many people want to feed that, but 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 beneficent around. 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. oh, the love way too much is visit the of all i'll make you don't. i admit that before working on the armageddon project, which it 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, who it's been a journey of self discovery through my encounters with rags, to a novelty aquatic nova. 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 rach us nerve. huge because of you. it's also called brown right. and lives in the city for it's 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 route 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 each because skill sets in best. and then i do a 2 story. and then what i'll do is just, you know, most of the home can, even as a biologist am, 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. and then i was one of those people who were afraid of raps because like, without really knowing why. so usual to build you hear 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 the universal symbol of danger and just toby at the judge due to the 1st and the so it was his deputy. huh. so the media always plays a role in shaping ideas and it's no different with wraps on the table. it's interesting that they function both as witnesses and producers of social ideas. the mutual steering the siege of parents who early 1870 parents was circled by the prussian army and completely cut off from the supply of could send you to a party. janelle would you. the parisians began to eat meat from animals. they had

never eaten before. most of including route because any law say to mostly by just get all the legal pulls formulas on. this 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 this question? yeah, mostly level this really left its mark on the french can install this. this moment was when the right was transformed the interns to meet on people's plates. but beyond actually the hosted the, the information newspapers of there are mentions on that force that dates back to the late 19th century. oftentimes, ledge by c, take official, 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 these kind of almost per book on the image cheese that people could see the well no, see, this is the left the, these are nice 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 with you, let's do one of the pre act 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 anticoagulants have generally been used. you have to kill rather susan. but since these are blood clotting inhibitors, which have the advantage that they have a slightly delayed effect, so they wrap some just enough poison, you are 5 at the same time, the substances are persist in that one 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 active substances from wrapped poisons, which can already be found in many other wild animals as lovely fish or 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. find the optic waste water is not clean to remove anticoagulants from the water. these tre, substances are so small that they can still be found in the tree. didn't wastewater offers of kids into sidney, south carolina, spanish board stuff. or there's a study where a car placed in ponds where purified waste water 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'm book stuff austin and gifting 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 the how can we prevent these toxins from accumulating further than the human? some of our tests, so alarming results to other animals react to the poison in the same way as rats do . they die from internal bleeding. yeah,

something has to be done with us 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. who sons on like you do? you need keep goods cause i choose to choose one team from the armageddon project is looking into the use over dentist sites like the rep points and they found, found that certain rab population was to 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 on the footprint of 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 all 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 is, is 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 it not to germany, a jew square represent it sometimes with the images of rats. so it seems that it's, it's all over the enemy, off of the nation, or what is perceived to be the enemy of the nation. but the wretched image is slowly improving. rats are being stuffed as part of the powers 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, very nice. i'm keep to, to do home 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 around the surface from the sewers. it's moving away from the image of darkness and evil. instead, we got a rat that's intelligent, funny, likable. curious, right, and hard working. if you call that, you know, looking at the placing read to, to a, if a rat who becomes an excellent code in the kitchen, really made a difference. but you've been ultimately helps to shift public opinion more is, especially among the young. she 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 routes as part of makes a big difference in how we manage them and improve the health of our cities altogether. wrap, steve, 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 said even has been 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 the dentist side and sewer is, is not effective. so then the next step should be to band poisoning minutes but i took. 1 the little bit

to what else to use this only be do we always release the animals where we caught them or very close to the trap in which they were caught? the sounds of to oh, 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 group of people, oh, don't rush, jacob, son of to these who is 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 of gold, we would have far fewer rats along with one of the yano cupid fee. there is a direct link between the presence of rabble steins and for waste management within and poor city administration. who loves you politics are never far away. right,

sir, ultimately a political issue. expanding cities, waste wells 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 threats is needed. after all, rad poison contaminates the environment, forming humans as much as anything else. but what's the solution? focused so much on the raft of 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 rats. so that's a solution to a wrap problem. that is a policy solution. it should be the big picture of how society also works. i know that in vancouver projects, but they've found out that the homeless people flow to contact with drugs and, and been kind of like, it would be probably the wrong to say that the, that's the restful halt. but the homeless people have contact with the rest. but probably kind of like social problem, if they often list people. so this, not that much homeless people in, hey listen, give, which means that this bought somebody that kind of like group which would be, would encounter rats and properly get to go to like make it the basic formats doesn't really exist. pretty much the only reason why rights come

a controlled in house. i give you some kind of likes demonstrating for structure humans need to abandon the illusion of is imitating rach completely. it hasn't worked so far and there is no reason it will in the future. rats are part of the urban ecosystem. modern rac 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 a, the routes are dangerous. i think that our actions towards managing them make them more or less dangerous, but we have no choice but to coexist with rach 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

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