“They’re simply turning on each other” after being deprived of food and waste generated by restaurants that have closed during the pandemic, an expert said.

– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

It’s a rat eat rat world
A file photo

Rats desperately searching for food during pandemic given a dramatic reduction in the availability of food sources.

With people hunkered down and restaurants all but closed down, rats are becoming more and more brazen in their foraging for food, including restoring to cannibalism.

The problem is particularly bad in New York City even if rats have also been an ongoing problem in Quincy in the wake of the Winter of 2015.

No escape from the rats of New York
An AVCO Embassy Pictures image

For example, just the rats coming to the surface from its subway system following a dramatic drop in food scraps available at stations given a steep decline in passenger numbers have dramatically increased the number of ravenous rats now evermore brazenly foraging above ground where less food is currently available what with – again – most restaurants closed, far fewer people are out and about chowing on a nosh, and many stuck at home are not letting their groceries go to waste.

You wanna piece of me?
A George Georgiou image

Not only does this increase the desperation of rats competing among themselves for now scarcer food above ground, they are also ever-increasingly bold in their searching for food. 

In turn, such increases both rats’ interactions with humans as well as the potential for increasing the transmission of rat-born illnesses to humans.

In short, just what we do not need in the middle of an already ongoing pandemic.

Source: C.D.C. Warns of ‘Aggressive’ Rats Searching for Food During Shutdowns

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