Boston city council to discuss expanding rat birth control program - Boston News, Weather, Sports
The Boston City Council will be discussing how the city is reducing its rat population – a pilot program has been testing out ways to curb the population without using poison.
People in one Jamaica Plain neighborhood have been feeding rats birth control as part of the program, and on Monday the city will discuss whether to take it city-wide.
In Jamaica Plain, feeders that resemble normal rat traps are filled with pellets that suppress the fertility of rodents.
The birth control pellets, called Goodbites, are part of a pilot program that residents started with the company Wisdom Good Works.
The program is leading to a 70 percent reduction in rats in that neighborhood. Those in charge said they only saw five dead rats during the duration of their study, and said most of them had been poisoned.
The company said the birth control pellets are completely harmless to other animal sand the environment, unlike rat poison.
They said that while poisoning has a more immediate impact on the number of rats in a given area, rats will continue to breed, which is why they say stopping that from happening to begin with is the best pest control.
