Smarty Pants : )
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A rat in NY City is the same as a rat in any other city...
A rat is a rat.. is a rat!!! : ) : )
It is all RELATIVE! That urban legend exhists because NYC has such a BIG problem controlling their rats.... whereas in other large cities, you don't hear of the rat problems as much because they are not that huge an issue.
In NYC, rats are a HUGE problem... thus, the "rats as big as cats" legend was born... :)
Here you go:
Surprisingly, in New York
City, cultural center of the richest country on the planet,
people are not only unwilling to worship or share their food
with their rodent brothers, they actually consider a vigorous
population of several million rats a public nuisance!
In 1997, New York officials went so far as to dedicate $8
million to establish an "Interagency Rodent Extermination Task
Force" with the objective of evicting the city's resident
rats. By the year 2000, the annual anti-rodent budget had
risen to some $13 million, yet the rats continue to thrive and
proliferate. Let's consider a few ratty facts.
Your typical Norway rat (the popular big brown variety) has
keen senses of hearing, smell, and touch - the better to seek
out eatables - and can easily chew through just about any
building materials known to man, including wood, wallboard,
plaster, masonry, and concrete. Though they grow to more than
a foot in length, not counting the tail, rats can squeeze
through an opening no more than a half-inch wide. Rats are
smart and they can find more ways to reach your food than you
can possibly anticipate. Rats are highly adaptable to changing
environments and food supplies. And, in just one year, a
single female rat can produce as many as 285 brand new rats
who are up and running in a matter of weeks.
We're fighting a losing battle. Rats have us beat on every
front. They've already taken a hefty bite out of the Big
Apple, and they seem to like the taste. New Yorkers may not
care much for them, but rats seem to enjoy the company of
humans. Or at least they like our cities where endless
supplies of conveniently stashed food are always close at hand
(or paw) for the enterprising rodent.
Rats, according to conservative estimates, outnumber human New
Yorkers about 6 to 1. So far, the city's best attempts at
rat-ocide have taken a big bite out of the fiscal budget but
barely a nibble out of the rat population. It might be time to
consider a more open-minded approach to the problem.
For more info:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~lilbun/ts/nyrats.html
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