New York City's Rats Will Be Fed To Infertility

Transit authorities in New York are planning to "wine and dine" the city's rats with specially developed food that will cause female rats to become infertile.

The rats will be given ContraPest, a substance that is designed to accelerate the natural egg loss in female rats which eventually leads to permanent, irreversible sterility.

Officials claim the bait is not lethal to the rats or harmful to humans or the environment.

"This technology, if successful, could complement our current strategies of poisoning and exclusion for rodent management," Thomas Lamb, the chief of innovation and technology for New York City Transit, said, according to The New York Times.

The number or rats living in New York City is unknown, but some estimates say there is at least as many rats in New York as humans, more than 8.3 million.

Rats are remarkably fertile as well, capable of bearing up to 12 pups per litter and having as many as seven litters a year.

ContraPest is made up of mostly salt, sugar, fat, and two active ingredients-an industrial chemical and and an herb, Bloomberg News reported.The bait will be placed in the subway system's trash rooms and rat traffic will be monitored.

ContraPest is made by Arizona-based SenesTech. SensTech will monitor rat activity in the subway system for three months. One goal is to get an idea of the rats' preferred foods so the ContraPest can be formulated to the rats' taste.

"Here in New York, rats have such a buffet available to them," said SenesTech Chief Executive Officer Loretta Mayer in the Bloomberg report. "But they don't necessarily get a lot of liquid, which is why we'll be offering them ... a semi-solid covered in kind of a cheese wax and also liquid from a bottle feeder-They'll have a bite to eat and a glass of wine, you know?"

The goal is to reduce the rat population by 75 percent.