"Spend enough time around New York City and you'll start to notice something: notches in the ears of some of the city's feral cats. There's a reason for that: it's a way to show that they have been neutered or spayed. This is a practice used elsewhere as well, and it's a useful way of keeping the feline population under control. But cats aren't the only animals whose populations cities seek to manage."
"As NPR's Ari Daniel reports, Somerville, Massachusetts - the city with the highest level of population density in New England - is experimenting with a program to reduce its own rat population. The initiative comes from Sam Lipson, the Senior Director of Environmental Health for neighboring Cambridge. As Lipson told NPR, the program currently being tested in the two cities involves a drug that will temporarily sterilize female rats."
""You need to have a steady supply or diet of this in order to have an effect on the local population," Lipson told NPR. He explained that this is not a catch-all solution, but is instead designed to work in tandem with other methods to reduce the overall rat population in the area.There are plenty of reasons for local governments to want to control their municipalities' rat populations, from preventing rats from being an invasive presence in homes"
Notches in feral cats' ears indicate neutering or spaying and help control feline populations. Somerville, Massachusetts, is testing a program to reduce rats using a drug that temporarily sterilizes female rats. The initiative, led by a Cambridge environmental health director, requires a steady supply or diet of the drug to affect local populations. The drug is intended to complement other rat-control methods rather than replace them. Municipalities pursue rodent control to prevent invasions of homes and reduce disease transmission to humans. Proposals have also appeared to employ large feral cat colonies against rats, though large-scale municipal cat-versus-rat programs remain untested and uncertain.
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