Rats

It's a bigger deal than some legislators think.

Years ago, we had rats in our house. We brought them there: They were good pets - did you know there is a rat fancy and a whole rat owner subculture? - and they were good pets, smart and inventive, energetic, happy to explore new places, and apt to get into new things wherever they could find them.

Those are not such good qualities in wild rats who are not socialized, healthy or properly fed. The kind of rats, in other words, rapidly increasing in number and infesting the Boise metro area in the last two to three years.

The problem is real. There’s some question now about the role of rats in spreading the Black Death in the middle ages, but (one study said) they were responsible for “at least three pandemics (in the 5th and 6th, 8th through 14th, and 19th through 21st centuries) of plague ravaged civilizations, and the disease undoubtedly plagued humankind prior to recorded history. Also, numerous other diseases are spread to humans by rats; thus, a quote from Hans Zinsser’s text Rats, Lice, and History, ‘Man and rat will always be pitted against each other as implacable enemies’ …”

There’s also harm to pets, property damage (even my domesticated rats had a nasty habit of chewing on wire), agricultural loss, and more. With its recent human population explosion, the expansion of the local rat community should come as no surprise, and it should be recognized as a real problem. Private pest control companies can help to a degree, but the situation is larger than that.

Northern Ada and Canyon counties together have become a real problem area for these Norway and roof rats, and notice has been taken. Maybe most of all in fast-growing Eagle, where one resident has complained about “an explosion of rats.” A technician with a private pest control company said they’ve seen the problem from the Boise foothills to Marsing.

Rats have been brought to the attention of local governments too, but so far they seem not to be a match for the rodents.

Next stop was - and yes, that’s past tense - the Idaho Legislature.

Two legislators from the area, Republican Senator Tammy Nichols of Middleton and Democratic Representative Steve Berch of Boise (and there’s an unusual combination), have been working on the problem all session and pulled together co-sponsors of both parties for Senate Bill 1271, a modest proposal that really only provided for spotlighting the problem and designating the state Department of Agriculture as “the coordinating agency to work with state and local partners using existing authority and resources, without creating new programs or requiring new funding.” It passed the Senate 28-3, but died in the House 32-38. The top complaint toward the end seemed to be that, well, this was a Boise area problem, and evidently not a state concern.

About that, at least three things should be said.

One is that the Boise metro area and its outskirts now are home to close to half of the state’s whole population. It’s not some isolated little hamlet.

Second, the state is hardly limited in addressing problems in regions or local areas. The obvious current analogue, as Representative Lori McCann of Lewiston pointed out, is the quagga mussel in the Snake River, an invasive species the state has been fighting (with some success) for several years - but lives only in the river and nearby area.

The third point, and some legislators did point it out as well, is that rats are mobile. (Remember those long-ago worldwide spreaders of disease?) Do you really expect that, if the population in the Boise area takes hold, it will not make its way to Twin Falls or Idaho Falls, or even the Panhandle?

But hey, it’s only Boise, not real Idaho. No problems to see here.

Or as the people of Ada-Canyon might say, “rats.”