Humboldt Penguins in Chile Face Extinction

From the Huffington Post....

Invading rats with bodies up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) long have begun eating eggs and chicks, and some experts fear that unless the rats are eradicated, they could tip the Humboldt penguin toward extinction.

New Rat Dissection App for iPad

Anything to help stop the dissection of real mice in schools.

Rats Taking Over from Mice in Labs

I recently fostered the sweetest little rat and I currently have two mice. Therefore, this Boston Globe article saddens me on both levels. And, of course, our old friend, Charles River Laboratories, will be a major supplier of lab rats.

Scientific advances over the last three years have now made it feasible to easily tinker with rat genes, creating the possibility of far better models of certain human diseases, and potentially shortening the time it takes to develop medications...

While both rats and mice have similarities to humans, rats win out in key areas.

Their blood system is much more similar, with a heart that beats four times faster than a person’s, instead of the mouse’s six times faster. Rat brains are far more complex than mouse brains, making them more likely to exhibit the behaviors of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, and autism, among other disorders. Their liver enzymes are more similar so they metabolize drugs more like people do.

Rats are also simply larger, as are their cancerous tumors, making them easier to study and to operate on.

But these innovations won’t mean the end of the lab mouse.

“To what degree the rat will replace the mouse remains to be seen,’’ said Iva S. Morse, corporate vice president for research model services at Charles River Laboratories, a Wilmington company that started by breeding lab rats in 1947 and has become a major supplier of rodents for research.

Defending Laboratory Rats

Nice article about people who are committed to defending "lab rats" used for medical research.

I've worked with rats and I find them charming and intelligent creatures. So I think it's sad to read this....

"You see people shut down if you talk about how a rat can suffer," says Chad Sandusky, director of toxicology and research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that fights for animal rights and advocates vegetarianism.

These are of course the same people that have no problem watching that stupid Ratatouille movie (or however you spell it) and saying how "cute" it is.

PAH!

Military Used Pigs in Brain Injury Research

Lovely.

Military researchers have dressed live pigs in body armor and strapped them into Humvee simulators that were then blown up with explosives to study the link between roadside bomb blasts and brain injury.

For an 11-month period that ended in December, researchers subjected pigs and rats to about 200 blasts, according to Pentagon documents and interviews. The explosions have ranged in intensity, wounding some of the pigs and killing others. Roadside bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Did you know this?

U.S. car companies used live animals, including pigs, for crash tests until the early 1990s. They stopped after protests from animal rights groups, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Year of the Rat Starts Badly in Guam

The USDA plans on poisoning hundreds or even thousands of rats on the Cocos Island (off the southern tip of Guam) in order to create a reserve for the endangered ko'ko bird, commonly known as the Guam rail.

Concern has been raised about the method of extermination.

Barrigada resident Viqui Gayer has collected 50 signatures against the use of the poisons, which she worries will spread through rodent predators to the oceans, and eventually to humans. Gayer said she started researching the poisons on the Internet after her dog died from eating a poisoned rat.

"It was a horrible way to die. I wouldn't even wish it on a rat," she said.

"These poisons are unnecessary. ... It kills animals, and whatever eats those animals also gets poisoned. It never ends. Once it's in the ecosystem, it stays there. ... What we need to do is stop people from bringing this poison to our island -- period."

Gayer suggested placing poisonless traps on Cocos as a safe alternative, but {USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services Assistant State Director David} Vice said traps would be ineffective.

"The thing about rodent eradication is if you miss one, you've failed," he said. "Trapping alone -- given all we've learned about rodents -- won't get rid of all the rodents."

The public has until March 1 to comment on the plan.

Photo by KiriS.

It's the Year of the Rat People!

Yes, it's coming on Feb. 7th. PETA Asia Pacific urges people to show kindness and respect to rats.

An animal rights group urged people Wednesday to welcome the Year of the Rat by treating the rodents with kindness and respect instead of trapping, poisoning and killing them. "Rats are intelligent, sensitive and friendly animals who bear the brunt of human fears and prejudices," said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the Asia-Pacific.

The group urged consumers to boycott companies that conduct "cruel experiments" on rats, mentioning several candy companies.

PETA cited studies showing rats are "fastidiously clean animals who groom themselves throughout the day." They naturally have a pleasant perfume-like smell.

They actually are very clean little animals. We used to volunteer on the critter team at the Seattle Animal Shelter, and they were always so cool.

Photo by Absolutwade

Using Feral Cats to Catch Rats

Voice for Animals has a program to place feral cats in police stations with rodent problems.

The Working Cats program of Voice for the Animals, a Los Angeles-based animal advocacy and rescue group, has placed feral cats in a handful of police stations with rodent problems, just as the group placed cats in the rat-plagued downtown flower district several years ago -- to great effect.

Six feral cats were recently installed as ratters in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Police Department's Southeast Division, and another group will be housed at the Central Division early in the new year.

Their reputation as furtive and successful exterminators grew after feral cats were introduced to the parking lot of the Wilshire Division nearly six years ago. Rats had been burrowing into the equipment bags that bicycle officers stored in outside cages; inside the facility, mice were sometimes scurrying across people's desks.

"Once we got the cats, problem solved," said Cmdr. Kirk Albanese, a captain at the Wilshire station at the time. "I was almost an immediate believer."

Here is a link to Voice for the Animals.