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Over centuries of time there has been many growing problems in NYC. One of the biggest... rats! They are no pretty sight to see in the middle of the streets but they sure have created a home for themselves in the infamous city to be in. In fact there was over 19,152 complaints made about rats in 2018 alone! It is not just an inconvenience to have a rat as a roommate but they can also carry pathogens that can cause diarrhea vomiting and more. Rats also have a grasp on the other species in NYC, they are a common meal for animals like hawks, owls, and other birds but what these birds don't know is the rats can be highly poisonous and carry dozens of diseases. In fact more and more of these birds have made NYC a home for themselves because mice and rats are so freely available to eat. In the picture below you will see what you may commonly walk by if you ever take a trip to NYC.

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The reason why there are so many rats in New York City is because people give them the perfect environment for them to thrive. Littering is a huge factor, people tend to leave left overs or empty food boxed on sidewalks or open garbage's, that rats use these pieces of food for their meal and it is not hard to find, so why would they want to leave!

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This is a perfect example of why rats thrive in New York City! They are getting a meal for a human all to themselves because people have an urge to litter.

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This is a perfect example of why rats thrive in New York City! They are getting a meal for a human all to themselves because people have an urge to litter.

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Changes in the Ecosystem and Feeding Relationships

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Changes in the Ecosystem and Feeding Relationships

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Rats have affected the ecosystem in many ways. Rats have brought in more and more hawk to the city , when they arrived there were less rats for other animals to feed on. They created an environment where animals like hawks and owls would need to learn to adapt without them for they are a primary source of food. The whole ecosystem would be affected because of the feeding changes that would need to take place.  Them being extinct would also lead to what could be an over abundance of junk on the street. Most food that is littered is cleaned up by rats, without them the food would sit there for weeks. This would eventually lead to other health issues for the people and animals.

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You can see here a hawk having a rat for lunch. Once the rats are gone the hawks will need to find new sources of food (sorry for the graphics).

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This is another picture of an animal that relies on rats for food, as you can see. Owls would go through the same effects as the hawk if rats were to no longer live in NYC.

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The ultimate solution to lower the risk of rats infecting humans or other animals would be to get rid of them completely. There are many different thought processes and plans to finally end the madness. This includes a plan to try to get lure rats near food then trapping them in buckets of alcohol. Other plans include cementing dirt basements, buying better waste containers, and increasing trash pickup. This will help the problem because rats will not be able to thrive as much as they do now in these conditions but it will not work to completely make them extinct in the NYC area.

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This picture is the device being used to trap rats in baths of alcohol and drowning them to help eliminate them.

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~NYC has the second most rats out of any city in the U.S.
~The rat population in NYC is 25% of the human population and about 8.4 million people live there.

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This is a map of all the rat sighting in NYC in 2018-2019.

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Vocab words used above
Ecosystem - a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

Feeding Relationships - the complex of interactions that takes place in food selection, ingestion, and regulation behaviors.
Adapt - make (something) suitable for a new use or purpose; modify.
Pathogen - a bacterium, virus, or other microorganism that can cause disease.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rats_in_New_York_City#:~:text=Rats%20can%20carry%20disease%2Dcausing,%2C%20typhus%2C%20and%20spotted%20fever.

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The link below will take you to a website with a video explaining an infection that rats caused that killed one person and made 2 others sick.

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The link below will take you to a website with a video explaining an infection that rats caused that killed one person and made 2 others sick.

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https://6abc.com/leptospirosis-new-york-city-bronx-rat-urine/1756158/