801: Must Be Rats on the Brain

23:47Todd opens the bottom drawer, and the treats are all there.

23:56Another thing I learned talking to Todd about rats is that they can jump incredibly high, like bunnies. Todd learned this when he set up his GoPro to figure out how his rats were getting into these high cubbies. The footage showed they were crawling onto the kitchen table and launching themselves four feet in the air. Todd knows their secret, but they don't know he knows. A few days later, he wakes up. And I walked into the living room, and I saw Claude, and he was running over to go do this, and then he kind of stopped and froze. He had been busted doing something naughty, and he walked up to the edge of the table, and I looked at him and he kind of turned and looked at me and then he turned and looked at the cubbies and then he turned and looked at me again and then he jumped like straight up just like a couple, like the saddest little jump and just belly flopped onto the ground.

24:45He essentially tried to trick me into thinking that he could not make this jump that like very easily could be done and I have seen them do now on camera many, many times. I'm just like, did that just happen? Like, did this rat just try to trick me into thinking he couldn't do something I know he can do? I talked to a rodent behavior specialist about all of this. He says Todd's got it mostly right. He wouldn't go so far as to say the rats were trying to trick Todd. But he said that rats know what will or won't get them treats from their owner, and they'll behave accordingly. What Todd is reading as intent is actually the nuance with which the rats can read the cues he's giving.

25:26I was surprised when the rodent guy told me how perceptive they are. If you're stressed, a rat can smell that. They also study your posture. They read your facial expressions. They can detect things about us that we can't even see in each other. And they're social animals. If you like them and aren't trying to kill them, they want to play all day. They enjoy it, which Todd noticed. It was nonstop entertainment. They are always up to something. And also, like, they're so loving. Like, they're just, like, they're one of the most, like, loving creatures you could ever have as a pet. Like, they just, like, are obsessed with you.

26:01It's like, wait, this is the side of rats I do not know about. Like no one talks about rats. They're so loving. So can you just like, I need you to, I need you to convince me that that's true. That's fair. That's totally understandable. But as far as like their loving nature is like, they just like constantly want to come cuddle and kiss you and give you a little licks. And like this is so I fully admit that like I am like pretty far off the deep end into like pet rat ownership. But there's still like another level that I haven't like sunk to yet, which is like a lot of people let their rats like clean their teeth and stuff, which is like disgusting to me.

26:46But rats love to groom you because that is like hugging and kissing. I think that I got a lot of booger eaters right now. They just always want to get my nose and try to like clean my boogers, which is like, dude, stop. That is like disgusting. You have a line. Oh, yeah, I do. I do. Yeah, I will not let them clean my teeth or boogers or the ear thing is like I don't want them crawling inside my ear. But it is really cute when they try to because like you hear their little squeaks and sniffs and that's pretty cute. But then once they start trying to get into your ear to clean, it's like, dude, stop.

27:17Like, that's disgusting.

27:22The idea of Todd being groomed by rats brings me back to his predicament. When does the thought, OK, I need to get rid of these rats if I want to have love and a relationship. When does that occur to you? Yeah. So for me, I feel like as the pandemic started kind of like actually winding down a bit, I think like post like the last variant, it felt like, you know, things were opening up again. People were, you know, I was going to parties again for the first time in a while and like meeting people at parties. And like, I think I was at a friend's party. And the moment kind of occurred, I was, I met a girl at this party and we really hit it off.

28:04And we were flirting. And then we exchanged numbers. And then she, we kind of kept talking. And then she inquired about potentially getting a drink. So we got a drink after this party. And then as things were winding down and the bar was closing, you know, I think like anybody, you fall into old habits. You're like, okay, do you want to go back to my place? And she's like, yeah. And like, it was like a Kaiser Soze moment where all of a sudden in my head, I was like, oh my God, wait a minute. I have at that point 12 rats in my apartment. Like it had not even occurred to me like, I can't bring this person home to an apartment full of rats.

28:35I was like, the first thing that rushed through my mind is like, how do I explain this to her to preface this before we go to my apartment? And like very quickly, I was like, there is no way to explain having 12 rats in your apartment. They were in his car on the way home. Todd turns to the woman and says, Actually, I'm really sorry. I lied to that. I'm actually really, really tired, and I have an early morning tomorrow. And so this girl probably thought I was not that into her or having second thoughts, when in reality it's because I didn't want to expose her to a rat-filled apartment. He takes her back to her car, and they never see each other again.

29:08I remember laying in bed that night being like, well, this is probably the end of rat ownership. If we're going to be meeting people again, life is kind of starting to get back to normal, this is not something that you can explain to somebody.

29:27Todd's tried to get rid of the rats, posted them online, but then every time he ends up backing out at the last minute, so much so that he's been banned from multiple online L.A. rat groups. Three and a half weeks ago, I had a woman who was coming to adopt them who, like, I feel really bad. She drove all the way from Simi Valley and, like, a half hour before, and I was like, I'm so sorry, I can't do this. Like, I got to keep them. I'm really, really sorry. I offered to, like, Venmo her for her gas, but she was like, no, don't worry about it, whatever. But, yeah, it's really hard to get rid of them.

29:57I've tried quite a bit. It's tough. Oh, man. I don't think you're going to be able to do it. I know, but I have to. There's got to be a way. Why do you have to? This is definitely not a sustainable way of living life. Todd told me he was planning on getting rid of all of his rats within a month.

30:32Okay. Hi, Todd. Hi. So, all right, so it's been four months since we last talked. Has it really been four months? It's been four months, well, minus like a few days. I'm dying to know. Have you given away the rats? I have not. I have, I feel like, made some progress in that I have committed to not getting any more rats or any new rats, which I think is a big step, a first step. I'm down to three now, unfortunately. You're down to three rats. Down to three rats, yeah. Since Todd got most of them around the same time, many of them died around the same time. It's been hard. He's actively restraining himself when he has the urge to get more rats.

31:21That takes discipline. What was the closest you came? Like, oh, a week ago, man, there was a really cute rat video. There was a rat, like, a week ago that came from the same, like, breed as one of my favorite rats, my first rat, Claude, that died. It was just like, oh, he's the cutest and best little rat. And there was, like, a really cute video that one of the rodent rescues posted. And I was like, yeah, he's up for adoption. I was like, man, four isn't that different than three. Maybe I'll just get like one more and then like see where that goes. But he was a young rat. I was like, if I get a fourth one that's young, then I'm going to have to get him a buddy when the other three die.

31:56And then now we're at two. And then like, you know where this goes from there. Like it's just like it spirals out of control pretty quickly. So why is he finally letting go of his rats? What changed? After our first call, he started opening up to women on dating apps about his rat ownership. To his surprise, at least half were totally cool with it. He even brought four dates home to meet the rats. It went great. This huge obstacle he'd invented, rats or love, it wasn't actually a problem. Which made him look at why he was so embarrassed about being a rat guy in the first place. I think I was more embarrassed and ashamed of being, in general, who I was and where I was at that point.

32:38Obviously, like the pandemic, like it just like everything that my identity was wrapped around had been paused. Like I love those rats. Do not get me wrong. And they are super fun. But I think also, you know, you could argue that I was using rat ownership as a way of avoiding addressing other problems in life. Because that's like the double whammy is like, OK, I'm not pouring all this time into this weird hobby. that means I do have to pour it into, you know, getting my career back on track, addressing my personal life, addressing my love life, and actually, like, taking those things serious. I don't have this, like, great excuse anymore to avoid them.

33:16Todd's taking steps to move towards a life without rats. He's taken down all the paintings and pictures the rats chewed the edges of and is replacing them with new art. The rats destroyed all his plants. He's buying new ones. And he's been going out on lots of dates. He feels hopeful about his new life. Though he did say when he's out buying new plants, maybe he'll see a new rat and get that too.

33:51Elma Baker, she's a producer on this show. And a real one to us rats.

34:00Coming up. No country for old rats. We visit a vast place that has somehow gotten rid of rats. That's in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio. When our program continues. This is American Life from our class. Today's program must be rats on the brain. My co-host today, New York Street Rats, Reggie and Rachel. Hello. Hey, how you doing? We're here. Oh, you guys. Welcome back to the second half. We have arrived at Act 2 of our program. Act 2, the Big Bag Theory. So like we were talking about at the beginning of the show, early on in the administration of the current mayor of New York, Mayor Adams, he and his rat czar declared a war on rats.

34:43But one thing about that entire project that's kind of absurd is that one reason that there are so many rats in New York City is just completely obvious. It's just out in the open, not complicated at all. That's right. It's racism. Oh, no, I'm sorry. No, it's plastic bags. Yeah, excuse me, excuse me. Yeah, the plastic bags. Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. New Yorkers put out their garbage in plastic bags. And if you've ever visited the city for more than a day, you've seen these. They're on the sidewalk at night. Just huge stacks of them just stretching down the block. It's about 8 million pounds of food waste every day.

35:21That's one pound for every man, woman, child, and non-binary person in the five boroughs. And it is also a lot of rat food. It's like a buffet on every block. And you're saying, oh, no, don't eat the buffet food. And is it very hard tearing into a plastic garbage bag?

35:38No. Is it hard to walk? All right, all right, point taken. Okay, so why, why, why would the biggest city in the country decide to do something so absurd and counterproductive? One of our producers, Ike Sreeze Kandaraja, looked into that. It wasn't always this way. New Yorkers used to take out their trash in Oscar the Grouch-style metal cans with tightly fitting lids. The cans were ubiquitous, mostly worked, but nobody liked them. Here's how you used to have to take out the trash. You'd put your raw refuse in a metal can. A sanitation worker would drag it to the back of the truck, banging it loudly to empty it out.

36:21where New Yorkers, many without hoses, were left to clean out their smelly metal cans. It wasn't great. Then, in the late 60s, the future arrived. America put a man on the moon and... Here's the answer, folks. New Glad trash bags. They're owner-proof, scatter-proof. So strong, they're leak-proof. It's the end of trashy trash. That's neat. Plastic trash bags were mass-produced for the first time. New York City Mayor John Lindsay saw an opportunity for an easy political win. He called a press conference on May 8, 1969. Reporters gathered in the Blue Room at City Hall. A garbage bag hung on the wall.

37:06And Mayor Lindsay announced plans for a new experimental program that would allow New Yorkers in half a dozen neighborhoods to drop trash bags directly on the curb overnight. The mayor said he wanted to see if paper and plastic garbage bags could reduce noise, odor, litter, speed up garbage collection, and improve conditions for sanitation workers. The sanitation union was all in. But not everyone was so glad. Bobby Corrigan remembers where he was. These days, he's a world-renowned rodentologist. But back then, he was taking an intro to pest management class at SUNY Farmingdale. His professor asked the class to consider the mayor's recent announcement.

37:54I remember him giving us a lesson about that event. And he said, I want you to write a homework lesson. What do you think this is going to do for the rat population of the city to put trash in plastic bags? What will this do? Even the students in Pest Control 101 could tell what would happen. The writing was on the wall that if we do this, we're going to be literally, as if it was a zoological garden, we're going to try to grow these animals for some reason. Bobby thinks back on this moment often. In the Terminator version of this movie, which would be called Ex-Terminator, the human survivors of New Rat City would send Bobby back to dive in front of the podium and knock the bag out of Mayor Lindsey's hand.

38:44If I was there sitting in the audience or any pest professional, we all would have went, whoa, whoa, stop. We have questions back here in the back row. Stop, stop. My message would have, I would have stood up and said, this is going to be a colossal mistake in public health and a colossal mistake in quality of life. And it needs to be stopped and rethink this whole thing with different approaches. How pivotal was this moment in the history of the New York City rat population? I think it was everything. I think it put this animal into hyperdrive. He calls this the Big Bang Theory, or the Big Bag Theory, because he's funny.

39:29Right before the bags in 1969, another respected rodentologist named Joe Brooks did a survey and found that rats were only in 11 % of New York. Now, Bobby says, rats are in 80 to 90 % of the city.

39:53So, did anyone in charge see this coming? If a bunch of undergrads in an entry-level pest class could tell, couldn't the people running the city? Fortunately, one of the men who brought plastic bags to New York is still alive. Jerry Kretschmer is now 88. Back then, he was acting sanitation commissioner. Jerry might be one of the last people left who can tell us definitively. Did they have any idea that plastic bags would lead to a ratpocalypse? In 1971, let's just say, if somebody would show me a plastic bag, I would think that's easy to fill, that's easy to pick up, and it's very easy to collect.

40:38Those are the things that I would have thought about it. I wouldn't have thought that rats could eat them because that wasn't what I was concerned with. My concern is collecting the garbage. Is that trade-off worth it? I don't know if it's worth it. My story is we've got to get the garbage collected. Rats were not on Jerry's radar at all. He was busy removing millions of pounds of garbage from the city every day. Which, by the way, is kind of a miracle. And bags? They made that massive job faster. 20 % faster. Where the city saw efficiency, big bag saw dollar signs. Bag makers primed the public by donating 600 ,000 sacks.

41:27and even got to help pick the guy who evaluated the pilot project. At the initial press conference, that guy claimed that bags would reduce the smell so much that they wouldn't attract rats, which, as any New Yorker who has walked past a pile of black bags baking under the hot sun can tell you, is just a total lie. In January 1971, the city council unanimously voted to approve the use of plastic bags in all five boroughs of New York. Cans were out, bags were in, and the party began. Oh, to be a New York City rat in the 1970s.

42:17Fast forward to 2023. I don't think you're going to find an administration that is more serious about containers and placing our garbage in containers like we are. That, of course, is Mayor Eric Adams. And the big thing he and his new rat czar are doing to take back the city from rats is to get trash bags back in trash cans. But Adams is putting millions of dollars into a new pilot that undoes Mayor Lindsay's pilot. It puts trash into sleek, modern bins. It's ambitious, bold, but here's why it might not work. The new containers need to be picked up more often, daily, or even twice a day. This would require hiring more sanitation workers.

43:08And buying new special side-loading trucks could cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. And then there's the parking spots. To make the plan work, the city would need to place the containers in 150 ,000 parking spots, up to 25 % of spots in some neighborhoods. So are New Yorkers willing to give up their parking in order to beat back rats? I don't want to give up a parking spot. It's hard enough to find a parking spot. You can't get a spot as it is around here just when you come home at night. Forget about it. I'd rather get rid of the rat problem. That's much more important.

43:50I mean, this is a walking city, so, you know, it's easy. Give up the spots. Give up the spots. $150 ,000. Where they go to park, in Jersey? You're asking like a very, two very intense things in New York. Finding a spot to park, but not wanting problems with a rat. That is$150 ,000. You gotta make sacrifices. You gotta make sacrifices, but that means people gotta spend more money going to like parking garages. Oh, that's, I'm gonna have to say no. I don't care at all. Same. Like, it doesn't affect me. Yeah. I don't think I care. I don't think I care whatsoever. Working spots aren't affecting me.

44:37It was mixed. Pretty much split. Humans are a house divided. Rats, they're united. They know what they need to do. That's why they're winning.

44:56Ike Shreese Kondaraja, he's a producer on our show. It's been two years since we first broadcast this episode. Mayor Adams has his job until December 31st. Last fall, he mandated that most New Yorkers, 70 % of them, now have to put their trash out in thick plastic bins with secure latching, rat-proof lids. So, the years passed. Did it work? Are people complying with the rule? We reached out to New York's Department of Sanitation to find out and learned. They have no idea. They don't know how many people are using the containers now. And they don't know how much trash was in containers before Mayor Adams mandated it.

45:35They are also not measuring whether the number of rats is going down in the city. The best measure they've got is complaints to 311 over the phone. Rat sightings. They are down roughly 20 % since the mayor's war on rats began. Though, in certain neighborhoods, they are up. Way up. It is not clear if Adam's successor, Zoran Mamdani, will be appointing his own rat song.

46:08A tree. Alberta. More like Almoida. A lot of rats. All right, so Dilly, everywhere there are people, there are rats. They thrive living off our agriculture and our garbage. They've followed us wherever we've settled. We followed you. Come on. Hey, hey, he's the main character. So you're saying it's more of a partnership. Absolutely. Come on. Well, I'm just saying that as people spread around the globe, like rats, most of the rats that are across New York and across America, they started in China and Mongolia, right? That's right. Mongolia and then got to Europe. And then, you know, we got on a boat and just headed out to everywhere.

46:50You know, everywhere the Europeans went, the rats went. That's actually the truth. And if you want to find places where there aren't rats, you basically have to go to places where there are no people, like Antarctica. There are islands here and there. But there is one big exception to all this. The largest place of human hapitation where there are no rats, Alberta, Canada. Alberta, Canada is a province of Canada, roughly the size of California and Oregon combined. It's bigger than France. And it's done something that humans elsewhere have failed at completely. They have no rats. How is that possible?

47:22How did they do it? We are a couple miles west of the Saskatchewan border. It's kind of like the front line, I guess. And there's no doubt that's where the rats show up. I'm riding through the Alberta countryside with Rat Inspector Jory Hoffman. It's green and mostly flat open space that to an American like me looks very Midwestern. Farm after farm. And the towns near the border are tiny. Jory's 29. Straight talking guy who volunteers at the fire department and small town events. In a t-shirt, jeans and baseball cap. His feelings about this line of work are uncomplicated. I liked my job. I liked outdoors.

48:03So spray weeds, go look for rats. Something new every day. I'm an everyday farmer, so I enjoy it. Rat hunting is just five weeks in the spring and fall for him. When he's not doing that, he's working the farm his family's had for five generations near here. He knows most of the farmers here along the border. Also in the truck is Karen Wickerson, who runs Alberta's rat control program. She explains that Alberta's campaign against rats began decades ago. If you picture for a second, okay, rats arrive on the east coast of North America and then slowly spread west across the continent. And in Canada, what that means is they infiltrate Quebec province and then they move west to Ontario province, the Manitoba province.

48:46Karen says they reached Saskatchewan province, surprisingly not that long ago, around 1920. And it took them 30 years to move across the province to get to the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. And essentially, we saw the rats coming, and so were able to mobilize and be ready for when they arrived. That day came in 1950. People in Alberta looked across the border of Saskatchewan and saw that rats were infiltrating farms and eating crops. Alberta is a big agricultural province, and Albertans were like, nope, we don't want the rats. And therefore, they were declared a pest so that every Albertan was responsible for controlling them.

49:23and they actively went out and educated people as well because people didn't know what rats looked like. They had rats taxidermied and put in all the local agricultural field offices just so that they could see what a rat actually looked like. The asset decided to set up a rat control zone, kind of a DMZ for rats, where they'd catch the vermin trying to infiltrate the pristine province to ravage their crops. The zone runs along the border with Saskatchewan, north to south, over 300 miles. 18 miles wide. That's where we are right now in this truck. Twice a year, Karen has 13 people that go out to inspect every farm and every spot where rats might nest.

50:04Joey's on a spring inspection today. He turns the truck into a driveway of a farm. We see four big steel grain bins. There's some farm equipment in the yard. Okay, we're pulling into where? Just a very suspect area. I've had an infestation at this yard before, so there was hundreds here inside this burning pit. We climb out of the truck to see if the rats have returned. The burning pit is 8 feet or 10 feet deep in the length of a good-sized swimming pool with a tangle of stuff sticking up that the farmer wants to set ablaze and get rid of. There's dead trees, barbed wire fencing, cow bones. Yeah, so what we're doing here, we're just going to walk around this burning pit, and we're looking on the edges for holes, rat runs.

50:53Like you can tell, they use the same track over and over so you can tell where they've been. Now, Jerry, you're climbing down. What are you pointing at? There's a hole there. It could be old. That hole's around three inches around. Yep. Yeah, could be a rat, could be new, could be a gopher, a weasel, or anything. We spot dozens of other holes, big and small, but no signs of life. No rat feces or food by the holes. Jory concludes there are probably no rats here when we go on to other farms. We're usually in and out in just a few minutes. We'll go around some bales of barley or oats, open doors to steal grain bins.

51:32The fact that we find zero rats, that's typical. Jory has 500 locations he inspects. And the number of actual infestations he discovers, like a real nest with dozens or hundreds of rats, once every two years. Wow. So it's a bad infestation once every two years, and then how many other times would you find a rat, let's say in a year? Like last year I found one, one solo, and probably none the year before that. Maybe none the year before that. Yeah, yeah. There must be a part of you where you kind of wish, like, you hope you find something so you have something to do. Yeah, so you have to remind yourself sometimes That's why you're doing it, because it can get fairly dry.

52:17I've been to all these yards so many times in my life, it's the same thing every time. This is a dirty secret of the world's most effective rat control program. They have done such a good job that at this point, it's kind of boring. Jory and Karen both use that word. It's like, Jory is Batman, and every night he goes out looking for criminals and never, ever finds them. Though I should say it took them a long time to get to this point. Back in the first years of the program in the 1950s, Karen says, the teams would discover 600 infestations a year in the rat control zone along the border. By the 1960s, they still needed 250 pest control officers to fan out and kill rats.

52:56Today, like I said, it's just 13 people. Instead of 600 infestations a year, it'll be just two to five. Take that in a second. Just two to five infestations in over 300 miles of border. One thing that helps them keep the numbers low, I thought this was interesting, is the death of the family farm. In Canada, just like in the U.S., so many small farmers have gone out of business over the last half century that the remaining farms are really far apart. So if rats stow away in feed or supplies and then land on a farm, it's hard for them to migrate to a neighbor. Consolidation of farms hasn't just been bad for small farmers.

53:32It's been bad for rats. Then when you find some, it's exciting when you find some. You get a sense of just how monotonous Joey's job usually is when he talks about the last big infestation he cleaned out. It was especially memorable because instead of using poison, which is the normal way to handle it, the landowner is the one who discovered the rats. And he told Jury, why don't you come out and bring a shotgun? They had me out, and they supplied all the bullets, all the shotgun shells. I brought my shotgun out and my other three friends, and we'd shoot, stand in a horseshoe. It's kind of like you're shooting clay pigeons.

54:10or skeet, if you know what that is. Yeah, and they just go running out of the holes and you get time to shoot them. And then reload. It was a ton of fun. Four good friends and four shotguns. And yeah, that was a great day. It was my first infestation too. Yeah, yeah. I had just started being mentored by my predecessor. So it was pretty exciting that I actually got to go out and see rats on my first day. That was about three years ago. When Karen talks about what was so great about this, she says the sentence you cannot imagine a New Yorker uttering in the same tone of voice. I actually got to see live rats.

54:50I told Jory I was worried that people would hear his glee over shooting rats and think he's a monster. He said it was actually a quicker death than poison. Probably less painful.

55:03Of course, if you truly want to keep Alberta rat free, you can't just patrol the border. Stray rats can hitch a ride in a truck or a car and land in Calgary or Edmonton or one of the other big cities or towns in the middle of the province. When that happens, and it does happen, Albertans are supposed to notify Karen's office. There used to be a phone number you could call if you spot a rat, dead or alive, anywhere in the province. But Karen has streamlined the process by creating an email address so people could just shoot a photo of the suspect critter and send it to her. Back in the truck, she pulled out her phone and opened an email folder overfilled with hundreds of rodent pics.

55:34I got a couple on Friday, a couple on Thursday. So this photo here, this is pretty typical. I have, I know right away when I look at it, it is a muskrat. A muskrat is not a rat. It's bigger, puffier. But Karen says she faces a funny problem from Albertans reporting rats. Albertans don't know. If you've lived in Alberta your whole life, you've never seen a rat. So identifying it is pretty hard. In 2023, of the 449 reports that Karen got, only 23 were rats. The official stats actually list the others as non-rats. Sometimes, of course, people do bring in rats intentionally to the province as pets.

56:20But in Alberta, that is breaking the law. And now and then Albertans will drop a dime on rat pet owners, even on people they know. To me, like, sometimes it can be a bad breakup. And this has happened. And, yeah, so people have been ratted out to me. In this case, it was an ex-boyfriend who ratted out his ex. She was not happy about this. Karen did what she does in these cases. She gives you a week to find your rat at home in another province. If you don't succeed, they euthanize your pet.

56:59Whenever anybody tries to estimate how much money Alberta saves by having no rats, the numbers are in the tens of millions. That's crops that weren't eaten and infrastructure that wasn't degraded. And the cost each year to keep rats out of Alberta? Shockingly low. Roughly$380 ,000, which is less than the price of one New York City garbage truck.

57:25The low cost and Alberta's success at keeping out rats is partly thanks to some lucky geography, Karen says. Namely, they only have to patrol one border. Rats don't come in from the west because there are mountains. Rats apparently don't cross mountains. They don't come up from the U.S. because Karen says it's too far between food sources. And they don't come down from the north because it's too cold for rats up there.

57:55Okay, so the humans of Alberta have banded together in a civic-minded mission that no other members of our species have been as successful at. I was very interested to find out, is that a big deal to Albertans? Do they feel a sense of achievement? Do they feel a sense of pride about that? My producer Ella and I approached Albertans on a drizzly day outside a compound full of animals that they do allow into the province. We were at the zoo. No, there's no rat exhibit. We checked. And we asked everybody to name the things that make Alberta special and different. Wondering how many of them would mention their epic ratlessness.

58:32Here's what they said. Their national parks cost a living. The scenic routes are much closer than you think. Diversity lately. Gas prices. This is a land of oil and gas, I guess. Notice what nobody's mentioning. The wildlife. There's all the lakes and all the royal forests to the north. The mountains. Mountains. Ooh, the Rocky Mountains for sure. We talked to a few dozen people. Not one mentioned rats. So the reason why I'm asking is because do you know about the rat situation in Alberta? Nope. There is no rat situation. Say more. I don't know. They've kept them out. They've had policies to keep them out ever since I can remember.

59:15So there are no rats. I take it from this conversation that isn't like a point of pride or something. No rats? No. No, not really. Honestly, I literally hadn't thought about it until you brought it up just now. Lots of people said they knew there were no rats, they're glad about it, but it is not a point of pride. This is the thing. Something is not around. You don't think about it. As one teenager put it. That's like thinking why there's no giraffes walking around here. Like, it's just kind of normal to us.

59:53Also, it turns out life in Alberta is not so different from life in the rat-filled rest of human civilization. Because Alberta has its own share of pests. In fact, as we stood there outside the zoo, an animal ran by us on the grass, and the family we were talking to was like, oh yeah, gophers. They're everywhere. You see them a lot. We probably have as many groundhogs and prairie dogs as New York has rats. Out in the rat control zone, on the border, Karen and Jury confirmed that of all the pests they have in the province, mice, muskrats, wild feral pigs, the worst one is gophers. Anyway, that's what everybody calls them, Gophers.

1:00:32But as Karen points out, they're actually Richardson ground squirrels. You could call it the menace out here. There's a war against gophers, for sure. There is an extreme war against gophers. So on your farm, do you have to put out poisons for the gophers? Yeah, or else you have to be like my dad and shoot a few hundred a day. Or else, like, we still don't have them under control. there's just thousands you could sit in one spot all day and shoot gophers without moving and then there's just holes and it makes your field rough and bouncy and messy and and they'll eat your grain they're terrible i hate them i bet my dad has shot probably 2 000 gophers already this season.

1:01:23Like, anytime he's not too busy working, that's what he goes and does.

1:01:34So wait, but then you're out here keeping the rats out, but you have this other pest that's just as bad, almost. Well, yeah, this one we can eradicate, and that one is too far gone. There's nothing we can do about it, really. Well, and they're native. Yeah, yeah. Whereas a Norweyer roof rat is not. It's an invasive species. I know, but just because they're Canadian doesn't mean they're not terrible for you. Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

1:02:06Standing there in the rat control zone, Karen did try to make the case that rats are way worse than gophers. Gophers don't move into a house or grain bin and leave their pee and poo. They don't chew through floors and do the same kinds of destruction. But in the end, what it comes down to is, gophers are Canadian. So what are you going to do? Like rats in New York. You can kill a few thousand here or there, but they're not going away. Even in a province that's done the impossible, some things are truly impossible.

1:02:46So what do you guys think? You can't enter Alberta, Canada. Oh, no. Oh, so sad. Oh, no. Hey, Rachel, oh, no. We don't get to go to Canada. Oh, don't get to eat a bunch of sloppy poutine and fart all night. Hey, you want to catch a game by the Edmonton Oilers?

1:03:08Okay, now it's time for Act 4. Hey, put that down. You can't eat that. Okay, so this is another story that you guys organized for us. Just explain what you did. Yeah, what we did was, Rachel, you want to... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we went under Delancey Street. Great street. Yeah, we got some microphones. We set it up in a real rat's nest. So this is going to be a real treat for you. You don't get to hear this very much. You know, we're very private inside the rat's nest. For those of you who like film, this is called Verite. This is real rats talking real issues. Talk about that real rat.

1:03:35Real rat. Real rat. Yes. Real rat rat. Real, real rat rat. Now, now, I have actually heard this recording and just an important fact for our human listeners to know before we play this. I should tell you, rat litters, they discuss rat litters, are about a dozen pups. And this is also important to know, male rats sometimes eat baby rats. And when they've studied this with lab rats, they've found that the males are less likely to eat their own babies. Isn't that right, you guys? Exactly. It depends on how much you like the kid. Look, and it's a cold world, but we have a lot of babies for a reason, all right?

1:04:04You're going to lose a few. You're going to keep a bunch, you know? You're going to eat a few. Okay, so another thing, and this is kind of out there, scientists have theorized that female rats might choose to mate with lots of males to protect their own pups from being eaten. So as best as we can tell, no studies have tested that yet. Okay, anything else you guys think we need to say to set this up? No, just roll the tape, all right? Quick warning. The story acknowledges the existence of sex between mammals. Okay, so this is a conversation between rats. Jerry Yeah? I have amazing news Okay I'm pregnant No way Yeah And you're sure it's mine?

1:04:44Absolutely 100 % sure Absolutely Because you do it, you know, as we all know Yes, no, I did have sex with every other male rat here, but absolutely Wow Yeah Wow So you're not gonna eat them? Yeah. Because they're yours. Yeah, probably not. I probably won't eat them yet. Okay. Especially if there's, you know, an abundance of food scraps and garbage. If I'm full, I definitely won't eat them. Okay. And even if I'm not full, I probably won't eat them. Because they're yours, baby. Yeah. This is the happiest news. I would say that there's a slim chance I would eat more than a couple of these babies.

1:05:24But I'm so psyched. Congratulations. I want to be a monster here, but Gina had some babies if you're feeling a little peckish. That's interesting. Probably. I don't... Gina's baby... Gina's babies probably wouldn't hit the spot, you know? Really? Gina's so tempestuous. She can get so emotional. Oh, okay. So you know that about Gina really well then. I'm just saying I probably wouldn't want to eat Gina's babies. Well, okay, are they only Gina's babies? Are they... I don't know. Are they all little Jesus mice? Unless Gina is having immaculate conception babies. It's definitely hers and someone else's.

1:06:08No, I assume they were Ralph's. Yeah, I assume so, too. Well, then why aren't you eating them? I don't know. Something instinctively... Ooh. Ooh.

1:06:23Listen. These aren't even yours. There, I said it. These aren't even yours. That's why I want to eat them so bad. I mean, you have to give me credit. I promised not to eat more than one-sixth of those babies when we both kind of instinctively knew they weren't mine. Oh, you keep your promises. You really keep your promises. Hey, I'm sorry it didn't work out. You're a great partner. But I guess things bounced the wrong way, and... I guess... I guess I impregnated Gina. I didn't mean to do it. I can see your nose twitching just when you say her name. I know. I should have known. Her beady little eyes when she told me she was pregnant.

1:07:06Well, once a rat, always a rat.

1:07:16Shout out to our friends, Jerry and Louise. Emmanuel Joji produced that story.

1:07:46We are the rats Our program was produced today by Diane Wu and Ike Shreez Kandaraja. The top of the show was produced by Valerie Kipnis. Hello, Mustafa. Produced by Story from Alberta. The people who put together our show today include Fia Bennett, Mike Comete, Aviva de Kornfeld, Bethel Hopte, Cassie Halley, Seth Lynn, Tobin Lothstone, Nelson, Catherine Raimondo, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummery, Alyssa Shipp, Elise Spiegel, Christopher Switala, and Matt Tierney. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Help on today's rerun from Suzanne Gabber.

1:08:23Today's show was broadcast in 2023. Since then, Darnese, who you heard at the beginning of the show, says her landlord did send a guy who cleaned up the trash and took care of the rats. Todd, the single guy who was trying to get rid of his rats, finally did succeed in doing that. Still not girlfriend. And he says he absolutely would get another rat if the opportunity presented itself. Special thanks today to... Rat disease expert Katie Byers from the Vancouver Rat Project. Robin Nagel. Ben Miller. Kim McCarson.

1:08:58and now in real life you guys are Bashir Salahuddin and Chandra Russell. You guys, let's hear your real voices. Hello. Hello. Hey, everybody. So, and people can see you on the TV show Southside on Max. Bashir, you're also in the film What Freedom, and Chandra, you're in the film Paper Bag Plan. That's right? Mm-hmm. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. Seriously, man, this is awesome. Yes. The rat improv in our last story was Chris Gethard and Tammy Sager. He's the host of the podcast Beautiful Anonymous. Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

1:09:36Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia. You know, he bought a new briefcase this week. He didn't want cowhide, didn't want snakeskin. He was very specific with the salesperson. They went back and forth. Talk about that real rat, real rat, real rat, yes. Real rat rat, real, real rat rat. Remember Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.