Back in 2018 at our house we began to feed the birds, a cheery pastime for old folks with not much to do but indulge warm feelings for nature. It was good to see our feathered friends at the squirrel-proof feeders filling up on rather expensive sunflower seed. However, by 2019 there were unintended consequences that meant more expense. Rats were nesting under the patio, attracted by the abundance of scattered seed and the water in the bird bath. Rats. Bad. We called the exterminator who set traps. $250 later we reclaimed our territory from the vermin.
That episode got me thinking about the roots of amity and antipathy. Why will we share space happily with birds and not with rats?
What makes us friends of the birds? Maybe their songs? To be accurate, birdsong ranges from delarkful to cuckoo to cawed offal. Which brings us to diet. Some birds eat road-kill or troublesome bugs, true. And yet farmers think of certain birds as feathered rats because they eat grain. Then we mustn't forget that birds are the source of some nasty diseases (3). To summarize, birds are good but not all good.
On the other hand, the bad reputation of rats as carriers of disease originates with the Black Death in the 14th century, a connection that is now in question (1, 2). It seems the cause may have been lousy people passing their lice to other lousy people without bothering the rats. Aren't rats dirty? Well, when the local humane society was trying to find homes for some pet rats, they claimed rats were cleaner than cats. It seems that in the 14th century they were also cleaner than people. Who needs a bath? Not the rats. They are grooming themselves all the time. Also, to their credit, rats as urban scavengers provide a valuable service in removing roadkill and garbage (deposited by people), and even doggy poops, yes doggy poops, that would otherwise accumulate and rot in the streets. Rats are tireless, unpaid servants of the municipal sanitation department. It is a moot point whether they invade our cities or we have expropriated their habitat to build our cities. The poor rats are, just like us, working hard in challenging circumstances to feed a family and make a home. So, have a heart.
The question on my mind is whether human amity toward birds and antipathy for rats is merely cultural bias or whether there are there deeper roots to these prejudices? And what will it take to change our behaviour toward our feathered and furry neighbours? It's complicated. I may be working on this for a few weeks.
First, how do we decide who is a friend? Daniel Dennett (4) identifies four grades of competence in comprehension for solving such survival problems.
1. Darwinian: genetic mutations expressed as instinctive biases selected by fitness and passed on to progeny.
2. Skinnerian: choose at random, and if it works choose the same way next time.
3. Popperian: imagine a choice and its outcome, and if it seems likely to work, do that.
4. Gregorian: use thinking tools to design a solution based on the accumulated collective experience of humanity passed on through language.
We have all of these competences, and use them mixed-and-matched according to the level of threat and urgency. The most primitive competence, Darwinian, yields quick, cheap and dirty solutions. For example, when you wake in the night to find a rat nibbling on your face, don't pause to consider whether it is an escaped pet looking for a home. Just throw it against the wall. That's what I would do.
At the other extreme we have seen a vigorous debate over pay equity for a rat named Remy doing the chef's job in a restaurant (5). We get into trouble with the trade guilds if we use raw instinct to decide such a complex issue. If rats are smart enough to manage the the work in a kitchen, then the matter of their remuneration deserves some serious Gregorian thought.
If I have convinced you that we are not being fair to the rats, please don't invent a high-tech, bird-proof rat feeder and advertise it on Facebook to get rich. If you do, you're on your own. Don't quote me on any of this. I concede that rats have been known to gnaw on the nose while one sleeps, and I have instinctive antipathy toward loss of face, law suits and hate-mail. Leave me out of it.
2. Gerbils may have caused Bubonic plague
5, Ratatouille
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