How to limit rat numbers? Train humans

No matter how much poison you put out, rats continue to thrive. So D.C.'s Rat Rangers are trying education (of people, not the rats). They take residents into back alleys to illuminate the problem.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST: Humans are losing the war on rats - not that we aren't trying. Many cities use poison and traps. Chicago and Boston are trying birth control. Washington, D.C., just launched its own rat contraceptive program. It is just not enough, though. Here in Washington, NPR's Ava Berger went out with a group teaching easier and less poisonous solutions. AVA BERGER, BYLINE: Normally, it would be hard to organize 24 people who don't know each other to wander down a dark alleyway on a Wednesday night - not for the Rat Rangers. HOLLY GERBERICH: All right, everyone, my name is Holly Gerberich. BERGER: Holly Gerberich is an anthrozoologist and urban rat specialist. GERBERICH: What I really want you to, like, reframe the conversation is, how do we make our environment less welcoming to rats? Because the reason that they're here is because we provide an ideal environment for them. BERGER: She leads residents on rat walks through Washington, D.C.'s, rat-infested alleys. The group, equipped with headlamps, close-toed shoes and a hesitant curiosity, slowly creeps down the alleyway to find rats. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. He's right there. He's big. GERBERICH: He's been hanging out for a while. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. GERBERICH: There he is. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's chubby. BERGER: This alley is crowded with overflowing garbage cans. There's a squished bag of dog waste, dinner leftovers and the remnants of a stick of butter. GERBERICH: I mean, this is just a hive of activity out - look at this is one. This trash can has a hole in the bottom, which is kind of unusual. Oh, look at this guy. Oh, a little juvenile. Yep. BERGER: Urban cities have long used poison to curb rat numbers, but it's still not enough. Bobby Corrigan is a rodentologist in New York. He said these chemicals are not an effective solution. They also kill more than just rats. BOBBY CORRIGAN: It's like planting a land mine, you know, for wildlife. BERGER: Rat walkers Zac Wood and his partner, Lydia Barker, said a litter of foxes died near their home from rat poison. ZAC WOOD: I mean, we're animal lovers. So, I mean, it's not just seeing, like, the foxes and the hawks and the owls and the animals that everyone loves suffer. I don't want the rats to suffer, either. And if there's a more humane solution, I always want to try that. BERGER: Catrina Valente, on the other hand, is fed up. She has the phone numbers for the city's rat inspectors. That's because rats took over her backyard. She can't even use it. CATRINA VALENTE: Everybody deserves a place to live. Rats are on this world like every other animal, right? But it's the disease, the uncleanliness, everything. It's like, I don't have the sympathy for them. BERGER: I met up with D.C.'s rodent control program manager, Andre Pitman, who's laying down poison in a downtown alley. (SOUNDBITE OF METAL OBJECT CLINKING) ANDRE PITMAN: I have a team of 16 inspectors. They're out in the field every day, responding to 311 service requests. BERGER: They started a program earlier this year to deploy rat birth control in parts of the cities. But even with the poison and contraception, it's still not enough. So they're sending the same message as the Rat Rangers. The key is educating residents about removing the rat's food source. Keep your space neat, no clutter, no trash. PITMAN: Not one person can do this. You know, we can come out and treat all day, but if we're not removing the contributing factors, they're going to reinfest. BERGER: It's something most of the rat walkers acknowledged they already knew - mind your trash. Still, the rat safari added the needed encouragement. Lizzie Stricklin says she's going to make a group chat with her neighbors. So that would bring people together in the way - the rats. LIZZIE STRICKLIN: (Laughter) If you want to give them credit for that. Sure. BERGER: Yes. There's definitely other ways to find community but fighting rats isn't a bad start. Ava Berger, NPR News, Washington. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST: Humans are losing the war on rats - not that we aren't trying. Many cities use poison and traps. Chicago and Boston are trying birth control. Washington, D.C., just launched its own rat contraceptive program. It is just not enough, though. Here in Washington, NPR's Ava Berger went out with a group teaching easier and less poisonous solutions. AVA BERGER, BYLINE: Normally, it would be hard to organize 24 people who don't know each other to wander down a dark alleyway on a Wednesday night - not for the Rat Rangers. HOLLY GERBERICH: All right, everyone, my name is Holly Gerberich. BERGER: Holly Gerberich is an anthrozoologist and urban rat specialist. GERBERICH: What I really want you to, like, reframe the conversation is, how do we make our environment less welcoming to rats? Because the reason that they're here is because we provide an ideal environment for them. BERGER: She leads residents on rat walks through Washington, D.C.'s, rat-infested alleys. The group, equipped with headlamps, close-toed shoes and a hesitant curiosity, slowly creeps down the alleyway to find rats. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. He's right there. He's big. GERBERICH: He's been hanging out for a while. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. GERBERICH: There he is. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's chubby. BERGER: This alley is crowded with overflowing garbage cans. There's a squished bag of dog waste, dinner leftovers and the remnants of a stick of butter. GERBERICH: I mean, this is just a hive of activity out - look at this is one. This trash can has a hole in the bottom, which is kind of unusual. Oh, look at this guy. Oh, a little juvenile. Yep. BERGER: Urban cities have long used poison to curb rat numbers, but it's still not enough. Bobby Corrigan is a rodentologist in New York. He said these chemicals are not an effective solution. They also kill more than just rats. BOBBY CORRIGAN: It's like planting a land mine, you know, for wildlife. BERGER: Rat walkers Zac Wood and his partner, Lydia Barker, said a litter of foxes died near their home from rat poison. ZAC WOOD: I mean, we're animal lovers. So, I mean, it's not just seeing, like, the foxes and the hawks and the owls and the animals that everyone loves suffer. I don't want the rats to suffer, either. And if there's a more humane solution, I always want to try that. BERGER: Catrina Valente, on the other hand, is fed up. She has the phone numbers for the city's rat inspectors. That's because rats took over her backyard. She can't even use it. CATRINA VALENTE: Everybody deserves a place to live. Rats are on this world like every other animal, right? But it's the disease, the uncleanliness, everything. It's like, I don't have the sympathy for them. BERGER: I met up with D.C.'s rodent control program manager, Andre Pitman, who's laying down poison in a downtown alley. (SOUNDBITE OF METAL OBJECT CLINKING) ANDRE PITMAN: I have a team of 16 inspectors. They're out in the field every day, responding to 311 service requests. BERGER: They started a program earlier this year to deploy rat birth control in parts of the cities. But even with the poison and contraception, it's still not enough. So they're sending the same message as the Rat Rangers. The key is educating residents about removing the rat's food source. Keep your space neat, no clutter, no trash. PITMAN: Not one person can do this. You know, we can come out and treat all day, but if we're not removing the contributing factors, they're going to reinfest. BERGER: It's something most of the rat walkers acknowledged they already knew - mind your trash. Still, the rat safari added the needed encouragement. Lizzie Stricklin says she's going to make a group chat with her neighbors. So that would bring people together in the way - the rats. LIZZIE STRICKLIN: (Laughter) If you want to give them credit for that. Sure. BERGER: Yes. There's definitely other ways to find community but fighting rats isn't a bad start. Ava Berger, NPR News, Washington. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Humans are losing the war on rats - not that we aren't trying. Many cities use poison and traps. Chicago and Boston are trying birth control. Washington, D.C., just launched its own rat contraceptive program. It is just not enough, though. Here in Washington, NPR's Ava Berger went out with a group teaching easier and less poisonous solutions. AVA BERGER, BYLINE: Normally, it would be hard to organize 24 people who don't know each other to wander down a dark alleyway on a Wednesday night - not for the Rat Rangers. HOLLY GERBERICH: All right, everyone, my name is Holly Gerberich. BERGER: Holly Gerberich is an anthrozoologist and urban rat specialist. GERBERICH: What I really want you to, like, reframe the conversation is, how do we make our environment less welcoming to rats? Because the reason that they're here is because we provide an ideal environment for them. BERGER: She leads residents on rat walks through Washington, D.C.'s, rat-infested alleys. The group, equipped with headlamps, close-toed shoes and a hesitant curiosity, slowly creeps down the alleyway to find rats. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. He's right there. He's big. GERBERICH: He's been hanging out for a while. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. GERBERICH: There he is. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's chubby. BERGER: This alley is crowded with overflowing garbage cans. There's a squished bag of dog waste, dinner leftovers and the remnants of a stick of butter. GERBERICH: I mean, this is just a hive of activity out - look at this is one. This trash can has a hole in the bottom, which is kind of unusual. Oh, look at this guy. Oh, a little juvenile. Yep. BERGER: Urban cities have long used poison to curb rat numbers, but it's still not enough. Bobby Corrigan is a rodentologist in New York. He said these chemicals are not an effective solution. They also kill more than just rats. BOBBY CORRIGAN: It's like planting a land mine, you know, for wildlife. BERGER: Rat walkers Zac Wood and his partner, Lydia Barker, said a litter of foxes died near their home from rat poison. ZAC WOOD: I mean, we're animal lovers. So, I mean, it's not just seeing, like, the foxes and the hawks and the owls and the animals that everyone loves suffer. I don't want the rats to suffer, either. And if there's a more humane solution, I always want to try that. BERGER: Catrina Valente, on the other hand, is fed up. She has the phone numbers for the city's rat inspectors. That's because rats took over her backyard. She can't even use it. CATRINA VALENTE: Everybody deserves a place to live. Rats are on this world like every other animal, right? But it's the disease, the uncleanliness, everything. It's like, I don't have the sympathy for them. BERGER: I met up with D.C.'s rodent control program manager, Andre Pitman, who's laying down poison in a downtown alley. (SOUNDBITE OF METAL OBJECT CLINKING) ANDRE PITMAN: I have a team of 16 inspectors. They're out in the field every day, responding to 311 service requests. BERGER: They started a program earlier this year to deploy rat birth control in parts of the cities. But even with the poison and contraception, it's still not enough. So they're sending the same message as the Rat Rangers. The key is educating residents about removing the rat's food source. Keep your space neat, no clutter, no trash. PITMAN: Not one person can do this. You know, we can come out and treat all day, but if we're not removing the contributing factors, they're going to reinfest. BERGER: It's something most of the rat walkers acknowledged they already knew - mind your trash. Still, the rat safari added the needed encouragement. Lizzie Stricklin says she's going to make a group chat with her neighbors. So that would bring people together in the way - the rats. LIZZIE STRICKLIN: (Laughter) If you want to give them credit for that. Sure. BERGER: Yes. There's definitely other ways to find community but fighting rats isn't a bad start. Ava Berger, NPR News, Washington. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Humans are losing the war on rats - not that we aren't trying. Many cities use poison and traps. Chicago and Boston are trying birth control. Washington, D.C., just launched its own rat contraceptive program. It is just not enough, though. Here in Washington, NPR's Ava Berger went out with a group teaching easier and less poisonous solutions. AVA BERGER, BYLINE: Normally, it would be hard to organize 24 people who don't know each other to wander down a dark alleyway on a Wednesday night - not for the Rat Rangers. HOLLY GERBERICH: All right, everyone, my name is Holly Gerberich. BERGER: Holly Gerberich is an anthrozoologist and urban rat specialist. GERBERICH: What I really want you to, like, reframe the conversation is, how do we make our environment less welcoming to rats? Because the reason that they're here is because we provide an ideal environment for them. BERGER: She leads residents on rat walks through Washington, D.C.'s, rat-infested alleys. The group, equipped with headlamps, close-toed shoes and a hesitant curiosity, slowly creeps down the alleyway to find rats. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. He's right there. He's big. GERBERICH: He's been hanging out for a while. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. GERBERICH: There he is. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's chubby. BERGER: This alley is crowded with overflowing garbage cans. There's a squished bag of dog waste, dinner leftovers and the remnants of a stick of butter. GERBERICH: I mean, this is just a hive of activity out - look at this is one. This trash can has a hole in the bottom, which