増加するネズミの駆除で犬が活躍　米首都の飲食店街

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】米首都ワシントンにあるバーや飲食店が立ち並ぶアダムズモーガン地区には、６月のある暑い夜、どんちゃん騒ぎをする人々が繰り出していた。しかし、良い天候に誘われ、ネズミも活発に動き回っていた。（写真は同地区内でネズミを追う犬）
　この街では、ネズミが急速に増えている。レストランやバー、クラブの裏通りを徘徊（はいかい）し、ごみ箱の残飯をあさっている。
　ネズミたちのお祭り騒ぎは、週に１度の「ネズミ狩り」で鳴りを静める。住民ら１０人以上とその猟犬が参加し、駆除活動に当たるのだ。
　「いい子だね、ヘンリー！」と犬のトレーナーのマーシャル・フェインバーグさん（２８）は、その夜初めてとなる獲物を仕留めて声を張り上げた。
　ワシントンは米国でネズミの多い都市のトップ５に入っている。暖冬傾向や人口の増加のほか、新型コロナウイルスの世界的な流行後に屋外飲食エリアが常設されたことが問題を悪化させた。
　地元メディアによると、２０２２年にはネズミの問題で市のホットラインに約１万３４００件の電話相談が寄せられ、前年比で約２０００件増加した。だが住民も、こうした状況に手をこまねいているわけではない。
　■多様な犬種や参加者
　腐ったごみと尿の悪臭が空気中に充満する中、グループが引き連れたダックスフントやテリア、サイトハウンドが、獲物を追い掛けて大型ごみ容器の下を突き進む。
　参加者の年齢層は幅広く、ソーシャルメディアを通じて仲間のネズミ狩り愛好家とつながり、市内やその近郊、隣接する州から参加する人もいる。
　元警察官のボマニ・ムツメさん（６０）は、グループが発足したばかりの３月からケアーンテリアを連れて参加している。
　ムツメさんは、「最初の狩りの際には、ただ犬を見つめていた」というネズミたちが、今ではより神経質になっているとみている。
　テディ・モリッツさん（７５）は「死のおばあちゃん」というニックネームで知られ、狩猟犬コミュニティーでは一種の伝説的存在だ。
　「ネズミの数を自然に制御するのには良い方法だ」と話すモリッツさん。毒ではネズミを数日で死に至らしめるのに対し、犬は素早く背骨を折り、何も感じさせないと説明する。「原始的だが効果的だ」
　グループは３時間で３０匹以上のネズミを仕留めた。
　フェインバーグさんは「犬と人が共に働き、都市のためにネズミの数をコントロールしようとしている」と述べ、チームワークの見本だと胸を張った。
　げっ歯類の専門家ボビー・コリガン氏はＡＦＰに対し、ネズミ狩りの効果を検証する科学的データはまだほとんど存在しないが、このような取り組みは、犬が農場のネズミ駆除のために訓練されていた数百年前にさかのぼると解説する。
　コリガン氏は「近年では犬がネズミ駆除の手段として再び脚光を浴びている」と述べ、需要の高まりを指摘した。
　また、ネズミの駆除で使用される毒はタカやフクロウなどの生物にも悪影響を及ぼす上、駆除装置を用いた場合はネズミが死ぬまで何日もかかるため、狩りの方がより害の少ない選択肢だと述べた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/07/14-16:08）

On a hot June night, revelers descend on Washington's Adams Morgan neighborhood, a nightlife and dining hotspot in the US capital. But they aren't the only ones profiting from the good weather.
Also out in number are the city's rapidly growing population of rats, which prowl the alleys behind the restaurants, bars and clubs, feasting on leftovers tossed out in the trash.
The rodents' merrymaking comes to a swift halt amid a flurry of barks, gnashing teeth and splattered blood: the result of a hunt involving a dozen humans and their hounds out on a weekly ratting expedition.
Good boy, Henry! Marshall Feinberg, a 28-year-old dog trainer, cries out as his lurcher claims the night's first kill.
The District of Columbia consistently makes the top five list of America's rattiest cities, a problem made worse by warming winters, a rising population, and outdoor dining areas made permanent after the Covid pandemic.
There were nearly 13,400 calls to a city hotline for rat issues in 2022, up around 2,000 on the year before, according to local media reports. Now, some residents are fighting back.
The putrid stench of garbage mixed with urine fills the air as the posse pushes forward. Their dachshunds, terriers and sighthounds dart beneath dumpsters in pursuit of their quarry.
- Diverse dogs, humans -
Like their dogs, the humans are a diverse lot: Black and white, old and young. Some are from the city or its suburbs while others have traveled from neighboring states, after connecting with fellow ratting enthusiasts through social media.
Bomani Mtume, a 60-year-old retired police officer who's here with Barto, his Cairn Terrier (the same breed as Toto from The Wizard of Oz), joined the group in March just as it started out.
When we first hunted, they didn't even run -- they just looked at the dogs, he said of the rats, explaining the predation that has since made them more skittish.
Even dogs that don't know each other start working together, it's a beautiful thing, he adds.
Teddy Moritz, a 75-year-old nicknamed Grandma Death, is something of a legend in the hunting dog community, and has brought her son and teenage grandson with her from Delaware.
It's a good way to organically control rats, she says, explaining rat poison takes several days to exterminate the vermin, while dogs quickly snap their spines, preventing them from feeling anything. Primitive but effective, she adds.
Spry and full of stamina, Moritz stamps her feet at a dumpster to redirect an escaping rat back towards the dog pack. A longtime breeder, she helped establish a lineage of dachshunds that team up with falcons to hunt rabbits, and are now used in ratting.
Over the course of three hours, the team racks up more than 30 kills, before disposing of them in trash cans.
What you saw basically was the definition of teamwork. It was dogs and people working together and trying to do good pest control to help our city, says Feinberg.
Rodentologist Bobby Corrigan told AFP that while there was little scientific data yet to validate the efficacy of ratting, such practices date back hundreds of years when dogs were trained for pest control at farms.
There's no doubt about it -- these days, dogs are making a resurgence in being used as a rat control tool, with commercial demand rising.
Moreover, said Corrigan, poison has been shown to harm species such as hawks and owls, and snap traps can take days to kill rats, making hunting the more humane option.
- A beloved employee -
Dogs aren't the only hunters tackling the city's rodent problem -- so too are cats, which prey mainly on mice.
Lisa LaFontaine, president of the Humane Rescue Alliance, told AFP her organization started the Blue Collar Cats program for the city's feral feline population in 2017, and had now matched 400 strays to local businesses.
We conceived this program as a way to give the cats the lives that they had always had, but do it in a way where they had all the vaccines they needed, she said.
They also receive a dedicated caretaker, shelter, a reliable food source and are neutered to prevent mating.
Twenty minutes out of the city in the town of Alexandria, Rue the cat has helped keep at bay the mice that once ransacked bags of birdseed and fertilizer at the Greenstreet Growers garden center.
She kills some of the mice, but she's just as much as a deterrent, explains Tim Williams, director of operations, who estimates the business' losses have shrunk to 10 percent of what they once were.
Rue's considered a star employee, and has a following on Instagram.
It's a fantastic twofold benefit of having the cat here, everyone loves seeing her, says Williams.