Cunning rat outsmarts scientists

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LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A rat released on a deserted island off New Zealand outsmarted scientists and evaded traps, baits and sniffer dogs before being captured four months later on a neighboring island, researchers have said.

Scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand released the Norway rat on the 23.5-acre island of Motuhoropapa to find out why rats are so difficult to eradicate.

They got more than they bargained for.

"Our findings confirm that eliminating a single invading rat is disproportionately difficult," James Russell and his colleagues said in a report in the science journal Nature.

Despite all their efforts, including fitting the rat with a radio collar, they couldn't catch the crafty creature.

After 10 weeks on the island the rodent decided it had had enough. It swam 400 meters, the longest distance recorded for a rat across open sea, to another rat-free island where it was eventually captured in a trap baited with penguin meat several weeks later.

The Norway rat, which is also called the brown or sewer rat, is a husky rodent that weighs about 11 ounces and has a long tail.

Invading rats on remote islands off the coast of New Zealand have been a recurring problem. Norway rats have invaded the uninhabited Noises Islands at least six times between 1981 and 2002.

"Our results may help in the design of conservation strategies to keep islands free of invasive rodents," Russell and team added.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science...eut/index.html
CNN.com - Cunning rat outsmarts scientists - Oct 21, 2005

No wonder they've been around so long :D

Rat granted asylum in UK and provided with a council flat in Birmingham.
Rat to sue NZ gov for marooning it. Cheri Blair to take case.

Rats are regarded as being at least as clever as dogs. I've seen some get round some quite complex dry and water mazes.
Very nice animals when you get past the '***** its a big rat' first reaction.

LOL :D

Rats are indeed smart, our cooks used to show up for work in the wee hours (4:30am) to get brkfst ready and they would come face to face with a wharf rat (they will come indoors for the winter), so they decided to start showing up with a .22

Pretty nerve wracking when you are being stared down by a Big F**king Rat

Even went so far as to adopt a local tomcat in the hope it would dissuade the vermin, few days later found cat's corpse :eek:

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Even went so far as to adopt a local tomcat in the hope it would dissuade the vermin, few days later found cat's corpse

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WOW!! are these wharf rats rather large? Or was the cat simply a p*$$y? :D

Hmmmmmm.........................

I have always found that 4.7gr of Bullseye behind a 485 grain Speer SJSWCHP did the trick...........I have also used C4 to some effect :eek: :D

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.I have also used C4 to some effect

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Isn't that a bit of an over kill Johnno? A M-80 I could see, but C-4 is almost like nuking them.

Lol you put a cat in there to get rid of them???? HAHAHAHAHAHAH. If they were Mice, sure Cats are awesome, specially house cats, as theya re the most murderous of all cats. They murder animals for the hell of it even though they have food given to them.

But for rats, they can kick a Cat down. Personally I'd get a snake for rats. The rats would take a while to actually take a snake down. If all else fails, dig a hole and put food in it, let them drop down and electrify the sides. Or build a little underground aquarium so nothing can get out that falls in, put food in there and a Cobra. that would take care of them because of the rats try taking on the snake, A cobra would defend itself with venom.

the good part is, you make it so it can't climb out. Like I said make only a slight opening so Rats can fit inside to get in, but make the fall long and narrow so nothing can get back out including the snake. Cobra venom can be treated so if somehow someone got bitten they would live unless they were REALLY allergic to it.

If you can't find a cobra, use Scorpions or Piranhas

Gore, you've thought about that waaay too much :D
But you're right about cats. Our 2 bring in dead/wounded prey and drop it in front of us and just kinda look like they don't know what they've done.
We've come home and found the kitchen covered in blood when they've not done the job right. Need to teach the cat about forensics and how to work the freezer/woodchipper.



Nihil - 4.7gr of Bullseye behind a 485 grain Speer SJSWCHP - ??

Grains as in gunpowder?

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woodchipper

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LOL, scenes from Fargo.

No the P***sy around this navy town are rather large, so was surprised when we saw that the rat had his way with our kitty, actually the rats down around here are the size of small dogs, and where our harbour is so generous when it comes time to feed the little critters, it's no wonder they are so large.(gotta figure approx 350,000 people have to go some time and well our ancestral engineers figured with such a huge ice free harbour, well why not??) :confused:

But as Nihil pointed out, if you have to use C-4 plastique, then our rats don't even come close to his.(we are talking about the 4 legged type though right?) :p

dalek,

i would pass out if i saw a rat the size of a small dog!

**shuddering**

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Isn't that a bit of an over kill Johnno? A M-80 I could see, but C-4 is almost like nuking them.

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OMG! :eek: .................................I clean forgot about the XK133 :D with a few rusty nails and some redundant tractor ballbearings, I have a viable device................here Tony Blair..........here Tony Blair..............nice little rodent......................

Asp~ grammes and grains................yes, "Bullseye" is nitrocellulose.........

SJ = semi-jacketed
SWC = semi-wadcutter
HP = hollow point

:)

I want a nail gun like the super nail gun on Quake. You'd so be able to nailt hat ****er to the ground with like 2 shots.

Not much use of getting a cat to kill rats like that you need a proper rat dog or a ferret. It is true water rats are the worst type. They can get to be fairly big. Still my old neighbour had a cat that would take on any thing from a medium size dog down. She used even attack the postman. true she was saved from a black plastic bag left in the local dump so she had a few issues.

If you want rid of rats, IMO the creature of choice has to be a mongoose. This is because they don't eat them, just kill them, and the rats will leave en masse if they know there is a mongoose around ;)

Would a ferret do the trick?
They're vicious little bastards.

A little terrier is the usual option for rats isn't it?

http://www.animalforum.com/dbreed/teairedale.htm

Hey you all thought I was talking about your typical pampered tabby, when I mentioned we sent in the cat to take care of the rat problem :(

The typical cat that hangs around a dockyard is a little more street wise then a house cat, they after all have to compete for scraps with the sh*thawks, no the one we found was a big stray, I think what happened is she got ganged up on by more then one rat, otherwise my money was on her. ;)

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Jack Black was rat-catcher and mole destroyer by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Victoria during the 1860s. Black cut a striking figure in his self-made "uniform" of scarlet topcoat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a huge leather belt inset with cast-iron rats. Black was, among other things, an accomplished dog breeder. He is quoted in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3 as saying: "I had a little rat dog—a black tan terrier by the name of Billy which was the greatest stock dog in London of that day. He was the father of the greatest portion of small black tan dogs in London now. I've been offered a sovereign per pound (in weight) for some of my little terriers, but I wouldn't take that price, for they weren't heavier than two or three pounds. I once sold one of the dogs to the Austrian Ambassador...My terrier dog was known to all the London fancy. As rat-killing dogs, there's no equal to that strain of black tan terriers."

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Guess the little Black Tan Terrier is the rats nemesis :)

Unfortunately, the mongoose option is not available for dalek :(

http://www.nature.ca/notebooks/english/mongoose.htm

A ferret would certainly do the job, but they are less sociable creatures and harder to control. They are legal in Canada, however:

http://www.ferrets.org/

:)

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Originally posted here by nihil
Unfortunately, the mongoose option is not available for dalek :(

http://www.nature.ca/notebooks/english/mongoose.htm

A ferret would certainly do the job, but they are less sociable creatures and harder to control. They are legal in Canada, however:

http://www.ferrets.org/

:)

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Yep ferrets would do the trick here,Mongoose would be ideal but unfortunatley when you introduce a non indiginous critter to your enviroment this is what happens Puerto Rico Rat problems :(

But then again, hhhmmm I wonder, I didn't notice it mentioned, but do you think the Mongoose would like Beaver, cause we got lots of Beaver's,....... hey that might not be a good thing either, maybe we can use them for the weasels we have on Parliament Hill

Well I wouldn't worry about beavers they are way too big!

Incidentally, they are being re-introduced in Europe:

http://www.scotsbeavers.org/

Thinking on it, I would have thought that your Mink would make a good native predator? They are a problem over here as they are non-indigenous...............escapees from fur farms, coypu are another problem from the same source :(

On the other hand, for heavy duty action I don't think you will do much better than this:

http://blindkat.tripod.com/zoo/wolverine.html

:eek:

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On the other hand, for heavy duty action I don't think you will do much better than this

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Yeah that and a Badger
http://www.fishbc.com/adventure/wild...als/badger.htm would be the ones to avoid. :cool: