BOSTON (WHDH) - If you live, work, or visit the city of Boston, odds are you’re familiar with rats.
Boston is no stranger to rats, but there is an ongoing effort to reduce rodent activity in the city.
7NEWS caught up with city leaders at the second annual Urban Rat Summit, where researchers, academics, and public health experts from all over the world come for an opportunity to exchange ideas and lessons learned about dealing with rats.
“Success for us in this looks like success experienced by our residents,” Kenzie Bok said, Administrator for the Boston Housing Authority.
“This is something where everybody starts putting their brains together and thinking about things and associating, ‘Hey, what about that topic that was brought up here, or what if we connect this to the earlier topic?’ So forth and so on,” Dr. Bobby Corrigan said, an urban rodentologist and keynote speaker.
John Ulrich with the Department of Inspectional Services said that, as part of the city’s rodent action plan, they’re looking at other ways to mitigate the problem besides killing the rats.
“We have shifted from a reactive to a more proactive approach as we try to reduce rats and improve the quality of life for Boston residents,” Ulrich said.
One of their main focuses is on Waste Management and reducing the rodents’ access to food.
“I think we’ve seen success with containerization in parks, also some of the sites with the Boston Housing Authority,” Ulrich said. It’s a difficult thing to measure, so we’re still looking at the data.”
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