A “rat birth control” program spearheaded by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to painlessly reduce the city’s notorious vermin infestation will launch in Adams Morgan next month.
Inspectors working in three-week cycles will place “non-lethal rodent fertility control bait” with a tracking powder around popular night spots, where rodents eat food waste tossed into alleyway trash bins behind restaurants and homes.
Officials plan to expand the program into Chinatown and Barracks Row if this first round proves successful.
“It is non-lethal but sterilizes rodents, reducing future reproduction,” D.C. Health told The Washington Times in a statement this week.
D.C. Health officials say they have identified 3,000 rat burrows as of this month.
The pilot program builds on several “rat walks” that Ms. Bowser has led to raise awareness about the city’s rodent problem since taking office in 2015.
The mayor urged city residents to keep their alleys clean at an April 1 press conference unveiling the plan.
“Make sure you’re bagging your trash tightly, you’re not letting your bins overflow, neighbors are not putting their household trash into the city bins that are for commercial trash,” said Ms. Bowser, a third-term Democrat who leaves office at the end of this year.
The city will also continue using traditional poison to curb the rat population during the pilot program.
The pest control company Orkin consistently ranks Washington as the 4th “rattiest city” in the nation — after Chicago, New York and Los Angeles — based on the number of treatments it performs. San Francisco ranks 5th.
Rats are such a nuisance for high-end D.C. neighborhoods that online forums have sprouted up to track sightings and post photographs.
For example, satirical reviews in the “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary” page on Yelp often praise the rodents of unusual size seen scurrying past the Northwest neighborhood’s iconic fountain in broad daylight.
Gerard Brown, who retired from D.C. Health in December after 27 years as the city’s unofficial “rat czar,” recalled in a phone interview that he received up to 20,000 complaints a year.
“Birth control is another tool, but there’s no silver bullet,” Mr. Brown said. “People have got to get involved. Limiting the food reduces the number of rats.”
He said the city’s rats migrated from restaurants to residential streets beginning in the 1960s, lured by people unwittingly feeding them with unwashed food containers and food waste in garbage cans.
Karla Lewis, a member of the city’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission who represents Northwest’s Bloomingdale and Truxton Circle neighborhoods, has led several walks reminding residents to use compost bins and garbage disposals.
“Poison is inhumane, but I also don’t like rats,” Ms. Lewis said in a phone call. “I think birth control will be a little better because it has less impact on the environment.”
The animal rights group PETA, which supports replacing poison with birth control, mailed Ms. Bowser a “kindness to rats” award this week for creating the pilot program.
Founded in 1980 as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Norfolk, Virginia group sent her a framed Humane Rodent Reduction Award certificate, a “Rats Have Rights” mug, and “delicious mouse-shaped vegan chocolates from Divine Treasures.”
“PETA tips its hat to the city for including a solution rooted in respect, common sense, and compassion, and urges cities everywhere to follow D.C.’s lead,” said Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s cofounder and a former chief of zoonotic disease control for the District.
