Re-inventing the rat trap
Rats spread disease, decrease agricultural crop harvests and are a general pest. Scientists at SFU have developed a rat trap that combines synthetic sex pheromones, food scents and baby rat sounds to lure rodents to the bait stations. They say it is 10 times more powerful than traditional traps using the scents of a male rat, smells rat’s like, along with electronic sound recordings of rat pups. The new trap trick the rodents using a synthetic sex chemical that replicates the pheromones of sexually mature male brown rats. The recorded cries trigger the maternal instinct in female rats and the male rats believe they’ve discovered a fresh meat meal. Once the rodent enters the bait box a mechanical snap trap breaks their neck. If this approach is successful then there will be a reduction in poison used for bait stations. There’s no learning effect passed along to next generation since the rat that has responded to the pheromone message or sound message has been killed and it cannot transfer that message.
http://www.delta-optimist.com/opinion/blogs/blog-re-inventing-the-rat-trap-1.2229158
