North Mexico Town Offers Bounties for Rats

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MEXICO CITY - For one northern Mexican town, an army of cats seemed like the best strategy against a plague of mice. But the cats proved no match for the problem, and now the town is pinning its hopes on a more lethal predator: men armed with cash incentives.



A recent plan to transport some 700 city-dwelling felines to an isolated farming town in order to exterminate an estimated half million rats that have engulfed the area turned out not to be nearly as successful as authorities had hoped.


"I don't think (the cats) worked very well because we know a cat sees one rat, eats it, then doesn't kill again until at least two days later," Velazquez said in a phone interview. "Yes they helped, but not enough."


So the community's mayor said Monday his office would offer rewards for people willing to kill the rodents the cats could not conquer. Those who can stomach it can earn 40 cents for each rodent they kill, said Jesus Velazquez, the mayor of the city of Guadalupe y Clavo.


The municipality of Guadalupe and Calvo includes the rat-infested town of Atascaderos, a wind-blown enclave in the rugged Tarahumara mountains of northern Chihuahua state.


Even before the plague of rats, the farming town wasn't exactly paradise: it's name translates roughly as "Mud Hole."


There, 3,000 residents appealed to state authorities months ago for help in striking back against the rats. Locals say the rodents have overrun at least 800 homes, with an average of 200 rats in each.


The most recent effort to rid the area of rats came at the end of September, when cats were collected from the state capital, Chihuahua city, about 300 miles north of Atascaderos.


Ads asking for cat donations started circulating in Chihuahua newspapers and hundreds of felines were taken to Atascaderos a few weeks later.


When the rat problem persisted, officials began clearing bushes and trees in the community and laying out poison. But that effort is expected to come to an end in a few weeks, when Velazquez said he will have no other choice but to devote public funds to more dramatic extermination methods.


"When the (cleaning) effort is over I'm going to designate public funds and buy dead rats from those who accept the task of killing them," he said.


The manual rat extermination program will continue until authorities can replace it with a widespread eradication plan of their own, the mayor said. Just how residents can prove they successful exterminated a rat remained unclear, however, as authorities concede that having people lining up to show off rodent carcasses is unsanitary.


Atascaderos residents became aware of the massive vermin problem about a year ago, when the rats started appearing on farms and in food warehouses.


Farmers set traps and put out poison, but the plan backfired, killing various cats and other rodent predators. With all their natural enemies vanquished, the rat population exploded. Now residents may have to fight pitched, house-to-house battles in order to reclaim their homes and property.


The problem is especially serious because rats give birth to as many as 800 offspring per year, and authorities fear the Atascaderos rats will give birth to a new generation of vermin who will spread to neighboring communities in search of food.