3 hours ago
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This cold weather is causing some e-rat-tile dysfunction.
Dirty rats aren’t doing the dirty deed in New York City as experts say a streak of Arctic temps have put the usually randy vermin’s libidos on ice.
“It’s stressing out rats. It’s putting them in their burrows,” the city’s “rat czar” Kathleen Corradi told the Associated Press.
“So we kind of get to double down now while the rats are ‘feeling the heat’ from this cold snap.”
Temperatures have remained well below freezing for most of the week, with Monday’s 26-degree high feeling downright balmy compared to Tuesday and Wednesday, which peaked at a below-average 20 degrees.
While the Big Apple’s human residents are certainly feeling the winter bite, Corradi said the city’s infamous rodent hordes aren’t faring much better, which can actually aid in the fight to keep their population at bay.
The cold weather is also stopping people from venturing outside, which means less food being discarded in the streets for rats to feast on.
The depleted food sources and a lack of warm and cozy confines for rats to bump and grind is putting downward pressure on their breeding activity, which Corradi says is effectively the animals’ “superpower.”
Taken together, Corradi said, the circumstances help the city’s rat patrol forces curb the rodents’ population ahead of the spring and summer months when they reproduce most prolifically.
Jason Munshi-South, a Drexel University ecology professor who studied NYC’s rat population, told the AP that many of the bewhiskered critters — particularly those having trouble finding food — are likely to starve to death over the winter months.
“Harsh winters like we are having so far will keep the rat population at a lower level if we have sustained cold, freezing periods.”
By Friday, high temperatures are forecast to finally be above freezing, even reaching into the mid-40s for a few days next week before dipping again.
With Post wires
English (US)