Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I can't believe

the Brooklyn City Council actually thought this was a good idea, or that it was an effective strategy. (Transcript version of the news brief heard on NPR's Morning Edition yesterday.)

Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

Forget bedbugs. Brooklyn has a larger pest: opossums. The New York Post reports that three years ago, the city tried to curb its rat problem by setting opossums free in local parks. The idea: opossums would eat rats, and when that food supply was gone, die off. Today, the nocturnal critters with twitchy pink noses are still around. They rejected rats. They eat garbage and climb fruit trees. And the rats are OK, too.


(FYI: It is very rare for opossums to carry rabies due to a low body temperature.)

2 comments:

SissySees said...

Gross! JRTs can take on the possums too...

Kristina Loen said...

Hey hey! I was poking around on Ravelry and then found my way here and took a peek reading through the other entries and working my way down the page :3

Barbra. After living in New York for a year, I can safely say: this does not surprise me in the least. I will now giggle about this and be thankful that I am living in Arizona--hopefully this will turn out to be a saner place to live!

--Kristi