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Cities should offer a quarter a piece for trapped or killed rats. This would offer gainful employment to the homeless population and solve the rodent infestation problem. The only catch is that people might start breeding rats to sell to the city. The credit for this idea goes to Christopher Paolella.
In
response to comments:
I was, indeed, reminded of this idea by the NYC Rat Detective idea. But I heard it from a freind who heard it from Chris years ago.
Rat bounties
http://en.wikipedia.../Perverse_incentive
Rat bounties have led to people farming rats. [Bad Jim, May 31 2008]
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I would hate to see those new improved NYC Rat Detectives being sold and killed though (seee NYC Rat Detective idea). |
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They are the hard working rats. |
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This idea is obvious in light of prior posts titled "NYC Rat Detective" and "Liquor for the Homeless". It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art of fundraising to combine the idea of feeding the homeless found in "Liquor" with the rats found in "NYC". |
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this is actually a blue law still on the books in several states. The citation i saw had the reward listed as a dime per rat, and the rats had to be joined by the tail. maybe a business could take advantage of this law by shipping dead lab rats to those states, although shipping and brokerage fees would probably erase all profit. |
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'Blue law' generally means something to do with sex... |
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People would start breeding the things...would take a month or so to get going, but pretty quick would be millions of them with almost no effort... |
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You can almost see the online auctions: "1000 rats cheap, low reserve, free shipping". If I recall correctly, Australia had something like this, a shilling a head, back in the 50's to eliminate the rabbits that some bright spark had let loose... |
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Terry Pratchett has been here. It worked very well, as soon as a tax on rat farms was added to the capitation for dead rats. |
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Squeak? <Preen whiskers, wiggle nose> |
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what about genetically engineering rats or cockroaches that are not only resistant to typical vectors etc, but also would be predatory against their natural, infected counterparts? kinda like white cells on a macro scale for urban areas, probably more thorough and better for the environment than natural destroyers like cats or poisons... |
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Ugh. That inevitably means that
you just end up with a more
powerful version of the species
that ends up turning on you.
Haven't you been watching your B-
grade sci-fi movies? |
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Breeding would be unnecessary, as the current population of rats in New York City alone would cost the city well in excess of 10 million dollars. Rats outnumber people there at a ratio of more than 8 to 1. I don't believe it would be possible to even keep up with the breeding already occurring, because rats breed when they have sufficient food, and a decrease in rat population would provide more food for the remaining rats, which would in turn trigger more breeding in those same rats. Until the food sources for the rats was removed, it would be a never ending cycle. |
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I like this idea, it's got a kinda vigilante thing going, have a bun. |
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I know it's an oldie, but I have to say that
is the most singularly vile idea I have
encountered on the bakery. I fucking hate
this for several reasons and the arsehole
who put it up. |
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Well, if it's any consolation, he posted three ideas in June of 2000 and dropped out of sight. Maybe unable to collect enough rats to survive. But he left an email address, write him and tell him how you feel. |
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//This would offer gainful employment
to the homeless population and solve
the rodent infestation problem//
Homeless people and other vulnerable
groups should NOT be made the
subject of
degrading or humiliating treatment, due
to their lack of choice or circumstances.
This is a real nazi/fascist notion. I'm
surprised that it has been allowed to
persist for so long with such weak
challenges. Apart from my "moral"
criticism, the idea is dull in its
construction, miss-spelt (freind), slack,
and uninventive. Let's kill rats duhhh -
zzzzzzzzz - wake me up when I can
watch them feeding on you. |
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I do not approve of, or condone the
killing of any animal, and will always
oppose head on any idea that promotes
violence directed towards animals or
vulnerable groups. My record on this is
clear, and I'm not behind the wall with
it. |
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My father used to kill vermin such as rats, opossum, and barn swallow for FFA when he was in school. They made a few cents off each tail. Funny, how when I was in FFA 30 years later, we sold rat poison as a fund raiser. |
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You're kdding right? 25 cents for a rat? at that price, it would be far more economically feasable for the homeless to kill, and eat the rat, rather than trying to figure out how to get a load of dead rats to wherever you need to turn that in. Can't take the bus, and nobody likes a hitchiker with a pack of dead rats, so our homeless bounty hunter would have to walk across town. Factor in the energy of going across town to drop off the rats, and the one quarter for food... nope. them rats are good eating. |
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Rat bounties in Hanoi, Vietnam led to locals farming rats. |
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The real solution to most rat problems is to keep lids on trash cans and generally keep the rats away from food. Not so easy in Vietnamese rice fields but in a city it can be achieved with laws. |
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Funnily enough, even in this proposed mechanism, rats produce a cheaper protein then chicken. I'll wager a tenner that the rats in [Bad Jim]'s anno and link are "surplus rats" having not been sold for meat. |
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On the roads to and from Accra (Ghana), for instance, you can buy, crucified on a jungle vine, a cane rat. Its value is more accurately described by the fact that it is sold (pre-smoked) rather than eaten. |
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Wanna git rid of them thar vermin? Adjust your diet. |
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Sell the dead rats to pig farmers and you can pay more... |
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Now if this was Cats you'd get my bread. Either genuine felines or the West End/Broadway Show. |
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It would be more profitable as a spectator sport if you took all of the sewer rats, stray cats, and homeless people and let them all run loose on an arena floor. 1st prize to the homeless guy who can catch the most rats without killing a cat. |
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or only if at the end of the contest, the homeless person has both eaten it and turned the hide into serviceable clothing. |
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Leave (those cute, mighty, little) rats in their natural habitat; instead, be efficient, encourage proper food consumption and storage, and maintain apposite waste disposal that discourage any vile infestation. |
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Rat colony proliferation is Nature’s efficient mitigating way of cleaning man’s improvident act of too much food wastage: without such, wasteful city dwellers would suffer horribly to the far more dangerous toxic mold colonies. (Think about it… Stay tuned for more, in N.G.C.) |
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This was tried in Doha, Qatar to get rid of rats. Obviously it didn't work. They only had to produce the tail to be paid so I suppose they tried breeding multi-tailed rats. The damage was caused not by the money issues (Qatar is not short of a bob or two) but by the fact that all the manual labour (mostly Keralans) did not show up to work as they were all too busy at home breeding rats. In the end cats were introduced which has worked well. There are plenty of open topped bins with all sorts of umska for the cats to eat. People don't seem to mind cats. If a kitten can get big enough to feed itself it is up and running as killing them, or neutering them, is haram. There are no stray dogs to get them. They also provide something to do for bored matrons by way of organising and running 'rescue' charities. |
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