Rats and Pigeons
Despite stories of "never being further than a few feet from a rat in London"
its very rare to see one. Here, I managed to picture a rat in Bayswater
searching for food in a wheelie bin behind a restaurant.
The rats in present-day london are brown rats [rattus norvegicus), which didn't arrive here until
the late 1720s. the london plague of 1665, and the earlier black death pandemics were caused by
plague carried by fleas on the coats of black rats [rattus rattus]. black rats are now one of the
rarest mammals in Britain, and although there were small colonies in london [around oxford street,
nd canning town] in the 1980s, the assumption is that they are probably extinct in the capital.
brown rats are far more 'adaptable' to change, burrow rather than climb, and with the
replacement of timber-framed buildings [which black rats used to climb and nest in] by bricks and
mortar, the habitat for black rats was reduced. since the 1730s we have seen a gradual but
effective replacement of black rats by brown across the uk.
Handy guide to RATS:
According to the 1995 National Rodent Census, one in 20 UK properties is infested with rats.
Rats are beneath your feet in the old London sewer tunnels. If you walked down a sewer
and trod on a dead rat it would be likely to explode like a chicken kiev!
Every hour in London 4000 rats are born!
THAMES Water has agreed to discuss the rat problem in the sewer system. At an environment committee,
chairman Cllr Eric Williams said "One rat can produce 2,000 rats in one year. It can be a major problem."
It is said that you are never more than twenty feet away from a rat in London
Decomposing rat found in refuse dumped near New Cross
In the summer of 1665 London suffered an outbreak of the bubonic plague. It was brought to London by
rats on board the ships that brought goods from overseas. The plague spread rapidly and once infected,
the chances of survival were very slim. During the yearlong outbreak 100,000 people died.
"far from there being any romance in the tales told of the rats, these vermin are really numerous and
formidable in the sewers, and have been known, I am assured, to attack men when alone, and even
sometimes when accompanied by others, with such fury that the people have escaped from them
with difficulty. They are particularly ferocious and dangerous, if they be driven into some corner whence
they cannot escape, when they will immediately fly at any one that opposes their progress."
Victorian Sewer flusherman
The British rat population is estimated at somewhere around 60 million, which is pretty much the same as its human
population. The main differences are the rats' superior repro capabilities.
Rats can kill us: their urine can carry a water-borne bacteria causing liver or kidney failure
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Stoke Newington
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Shoreditch
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South Kensington Tube
Jon who worked on the tube took this pic - this rat caused a shut down of the District Line on London's
Underground on the 5th October 2006. As you can see the rat shorted out across the 630vDC connectors.
The result was that the traction current switched off via the fail safe devices and a line walk had to
instigated to find the cause of the dead short. They do not simply switch back on the current until they
can be sure that it won't suddenly short out again.
Officials say millions of pigeons in London are disease-ridden and have no respect for statues and historic buildings.
They say it costs thousands of pounds every year to clean up after them.Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said pigeon
droppings have caused up to £140,000 damage to Nelson's Column and the square.
Volunteers turn up every day to scatter seeds often clashing with people employed to scare off the flocks using megaphones,
a vacuum device to suck up the seeds and three Harris hawks. All wild birds have the potential to pass on diseases to other
birds and to human beings but the chances of this happening are a million to one, certainly in the case of human beings.
Pigeons are no more likely to transmit diseases to human beings than any other species of wild bird.
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The Pigeons Are Back!
Despite the efforts of "Heritage Wardens" to chase off the pigeons quite a few can be seen again around Trafalgar Square!
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