page_title: Rats in New York City
section_title: Population
hierarchical_section_title: Rats in New York City / Description / Population
caption_attribution_description: Rat in a flowerbox in New York City.
context_page_description: Rats in New York City are widespread, as they are in many densely populated areas. For a long time, the number of rats in New York City was unknown, and a common urban legend declared there were up to five times as many rats as people. In 2014, however, scientists more accurately measured the entire city's rat population to be approximately only 24% of the number of humans. That would reduce the urban legend's ratio considerably, with approximately 2 million rats to New York's 8.4 million people at the time of the study.
  The city's rat population is dominated by the brown rat. The average adult body weight is 350 grams in males and about 250 grams in females. The adult rat can squeeze through holes or gaps 1 inch wide, jump a horizontal distance of up to 4 feet, survive a fall from a height of almost 40 feet, and tread water for three days.
  New York City rats carry pathogens that can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and fever in humans – especially in children. The pathogens they carry include bacteria such as Clostridium difficile, Salmonella, E. coli, and Leptospira. Bartonella bacteria cause cat scratch disease, trench fever, and Carron disease.
context_section_description: Rats are elusive by nature, and public health officials have not developed any reliable way to estimate their numbers. However, a 2014 study by Jonathan Auerbach, which was reported in the Royal Statistical Society's Significance magazine, estimated that there were closer to 2 million rats in the city.  This deposes the often-repeated statistic that there are more rats than people in the five boroughs of New York City (8.4 million in 2014), with some estimates putting the number of rats far higher at as many as five rats per person (33.6 million).
  In 2014, the television channel Animal Planet named New York City the "Worst Rat City in the World," and rodentologist Bobby Corrigan called New York City the "USA's No. 1 Pestropolis." Compared to other cities within the United States, studies indicate New York is particularly well-suited for rats. This conclusion is based on characteristics such as human population patterns, public sanitation practices, climate, housing construction standards and other variables. Experts consider that the actual population of rats varies, depending on climate, sanitation practices, efforts to control the population, and season.
caption: A rat in a flower box
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