The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-01-19
RACE SUICIDE TO
KILL OFF RATS
British Zoo Director Says Pres
ent Methods Are Wrong.
WOULD KILL ONLY FEMALES

Breed-Four Males and Six Fe
males, Given Sufficient Food. vii
Increase to 10000 Females anc
10000 Males Within Two Years
Proven by Denmark's Experience.
Great Britain's strenuous efforts
during the National Rat week just
closed. to destroy the rodents said to
have been responsible for the destruc-
ton of $1400OO,OOO worth of food
last year, are pronounced by an Eng
lish scientist to be completely and ex-
actly wrong.
According TO this authority, the
ministry of health in encouraging the
wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter
of rats In the British Isles is merely
improving living conditions for the
| survivors, whose progeny in less than
year will be as pOpulous as before
There is only one way to rid the world
| of rats. says this man, and that is to
appeal to biological laws, to upset the
numerical proportions, between the
sexes and then leave the males to de-
stroy their own race.
This advocate OF sexual selection In
place of rat poison is Director George
Jennison of the Manchester Geological
Gardens, who, in a recent appeal to
the sanitary authorities Of England,
says:
Can't Kill Them All.
when one realizes the enormous
fecundity of rats-a fecundity so great
that four males and six females given
sufficient food, will increase to 10000
females and 10000 males within two
years-it becomes apparent that hit-or-
miss methods will never work. You
can't kill them all by human efforts
and if you let a single pair escape
you will have presently the same
swarms as before.
'"Ts.,sse r-t crusades are all wrong
AS ever, body knows. the male rat is
the holder, the one who roves abroad
recklessly and he is the one who is
caught in these indiscriminate attacks.
This decrease in the males means more
food and more quiet for the females
who. undisturbed, breed prolifically
and soon restore the number
1Vilhdi > eADtIlfute proves IHlS |
completely. Denmark began in 1907 |
the policy of the indiscriminate kill |
ing of rats. She had most elaborate |
and efficient --ystem. In 1907 she killed !
$4,000 rats, the vast majority Of |
whom were males. But eight years
later, With the system still in force,
she killer 10000 rats She had made
no Roadway whatever. To be sure,
she killed only $4,000 last year. but
that decrease-as she admits herself
Is due to the food famine conditions
prevailing there during the war.
THE only scientific course is to
turn your back resolutely on this in
slaughter and deliber-
ately upset the balance of the sexes
Rat poison should be forbidden. Like
wise shooting rats or catching them
In spring traps that kill them. The
thing to do is to catch them alive In
traps or trap rooms, examine them,
destroy the females and turn the males
loose.
Destroy the Race.
THAT may sound like a fantastic
but every experienced
English game keeper follows exactly
he same procedure when he wants
o increase or decrease game on q
preserve. Ordinarily there are, as we
NOV, two male rats to every three
emales. If you disturb this balance,
20 that there are two males to every
cmale, you destroy the race, first by
citing the males against each other
nd secondly by forcing them to harry
he does in the breeding season
eve have been following this meth
d now for some years in the Zoolog-
cal Gardens In 1915 when we be-
an. we caught, on an average, 50 rats
month. BY destroying the females
I'D releasing the males, we have now
ut the population down visibly; we
ow catch only about 10 rats
,onth.
america has afforded biologists a
triking example, all Internationally,
the success OF this method. I re-
ar to the total destruction of the pas {
enger pigeon in America. At one
me the flOckS numbered hundreds of
but hunters, setting them a
est in the breeding season. upset the a
alance and in a few decades COM "
etely destroyed the species. o
"Rodier of Melbourne. Australia, is
wing to persuade the people of t,
at continent to follow this method v
attacking the rabbit pest, which. in n
lite Of all efforts is growing worse ii
oh year. Every new settler in u
eases the food supply and mutiplies W
e number of rabbits. The waste in W
oney is S1OO.OO0OO0 year and in 81
easing yearly. The rabbits are
isoned and trapped and shot in such "
ge numbers that bIowfiies nfcst the
r in certain seasons. But 1t is hope oil
IS. The Australians can make no hi
adway until they enlist sexual selec- w
n Oh their side, kill All the fena es ia
lease the males aud set the latter 10
stroy the breed. M
crusade against rats dates