Mayor Eric Adams, who has made his hatred of rats a central talking point, said Wednesday that New York City will host a first-of-its kind nationwide summit devoted to fighting rodent infestations.
The National Urban Rat Summit will be held Sept. 18 and 19 as a partnership between the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University, the mayor’s office said. It aims to advance solutions to rodent mitigation by bringing together experts, including academic researchers and municipal pest control managers, the city said.
Rat-fighting has been one of the signature quality-of-life issues of Adams’ mayoralty, after rodent complaints surged during the pandemic. His efforts have included taking steps to require all trash to be stored in containers, and appointing a “rat czar,” Kathleen Corradi, to coordinate rodent mitigation among agencies.
“The best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy,” Adams said in a statement. “That’s why we’re holding this inaugural summit, to bring experts and leaders from across the country together to better understand urban rats and how to manage their populations.”
There are signs that the administration’s approach is working: about 8,500 rat sightings have been reported to 311 this year, down from 8,900 through the same period last year, according to city data. There has been a bigger 55% decline in the section of Harlem where the city began experimenting with containerized garbage collection last year for residences and schools.
Corradi said in a statement that “there is surprisingly limited research on urban rats and their management,” a knowledge gap that the summit aims to fill in.
Participants are set to include experts from Seattle, Boston and New Orleans, plus other “prominent rat researchers,” the mayor’s office said. The city did not say where the conference would be held.
Under Adams, all of the city’s businesses have had to store their trash in containers since March. A long-held dream of getting all residential trash off the sidewalk now seems within reach, after the administration released a plan in February spelling out how all buildings could store trash in either small wheeled bins or large on-street containers.
A timeframe for that citywide plan will be set based on the results for a pilot effort planned for West Harlem starting in 2025. Experts have said depriving rats of easy-to-reach food sources like garbage is the most straightforward way to reduce their presence in cities.
Nick Garber , 2024-05-15 17:39:39
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