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rats versus logic

2003-03-09 - 11:32 a.m.

The rat is dead and disposed of. We are leaving the traps in place in case there are any others.

When I was a child, we were taught the now largely discredited theory that predators controlled the population of prey. We now know that it's the other way around: Prey controls the size of the population of predators. In years gone by, I would be flabbergasted that my yard could be simultaneously overrun by cats and by rats. These days, I have come to terms with the fact that this is just the way it works. The populaton of feral cats could not continue to expand in winter, without helpless baby birds and fledglings to prey upon, if they didn't have an alternate food source -- in this case, the rats which seem to go through a four or five year cycle of being a nuisance and then disappearing from notice and then gradually expanding until they are a nuisance again.

The whole process still seems counter-intuitive, though.

Hummingbird note: Adult male Ruby-Throat.

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