An invasion of 300 million cat-sized superheroes hits the UK

Mice are a problem on half the planet. After New York, where according to an urban legend, there are as many lemmings as there are human beings (nearly nine million), Super rat infestation Cat-sized immortals have now landed in the UK.

We don’t know if it was a purely informational strategy to sell more copiesHowever, several British newspapers confirm that the country is facing an epidemic of 300 million Giant rats ‘able to chew on concrete’.

A TikTok user, known as “Leyanneorr,” posted a video A giant rat runs around the McDonald’s parking lot in Torriglinsouth Glasgow, something also collected by Daily Mail, which also references this video: A woman is in shock after seeing a giant rat feeding on a rubbish bin in a Scottish McDonald’s car park.

This newspaper was quoted Steve Belmin, Professor of Ecology at the University of Greenwich, which claims it could “easily imagine” an epidemic of 300 million rats in the UK. According to this professor, “Mice can gnaw concrete and metal, usually soft metals such as tin, aluminum, copper and lead, but I have seen gnaw marks on steel, various hard plastics such as drainpipes and terracotta, as well as on concrete walls.”

The Daily Mail mentions recent data that calculates this 78% of rats and 95% of house mice have genes that make them immune Toxins that have been used as pesticides since the 1950s.

According to Dee Ward Thompson, Technical Officer with the British Pest Control Society, “The spread was likely accelerated by the use of rodenticides (pesticides) by hobbyists, such as home and business owners who do it themselves or hire an unqualified person to try and solve the problem.”

An urban legend says that in London you are never more than two meters from a rat. In 2016, Dr Stephen Battersby, a housing and environmental health consultant who has researched British rat prevalence for decades, told the Guardian that you can estimate how close you are to rats by knowing how many rats there are in urban areas.

In other words, in the most decrepit urban area of ​​the British capital, one would fall within 3 or 4 meters of one of these rodents. That was appreciated There were about ten million in British citiesas reported by My London.

For his part, said David Cowan, scientific director of the National Center for Wildlife Management in Sand Hatton. Confirms that in the UK there were more 1.5 million mice in total in or around our homes..

Add to that the approximately 1.6 million rats in our sewer systems and 200,000 roaming near commercial areas, and stress The total population of urban “street” rats was between 3 and 3.5 million across the UK.

Cowan’s numbers indicate this In British urban centres, like London, you’re not 2 meters away from a rat, but 64. In any case, the expert acknowledged that it is impossible to know for sure and called for caution.