The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to a scientific study, rats will have a harmful effect on agriculture and livelihood of people within a few years. The alarm was sounded in a scientific study that was conducted by a team of rodent experts on rodent outbreaks in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in 2008 and presented at a recent Dhaka University seminar. Unusually large number of rats have been storming out of the hill forests since 2007 causing major sufferings and hardships to the local people. When the bamboo flowers - a rare event occurring twice in a century - the rats gorge on the bamboo fruits and seeds, become more fertile, and increase their population at an exponential rate. When the bamboo fruits have been consumed in their entirety, they turn to other food items and eat up everything like paddy in the fields and rice stored at home by villagers.

Similar events are known to have occurred periodically in the hill districts, the rodent experts recalled and added there is apprehension again this time of such voracious aggression by rats and substantial pre-and post-harvest losses to agriculture and food. The experts also warned that the invasion by rats would not only affect the people and their livelihoods, but also spread debilitating diseases. According to UNDP-aided research findings, four to six per cent of the standing crops in the fields and seven to ten per cent stored cereals have been eaten up by rats. Earlier, when the hill people gave up the habit of eating rats following the arrival of plain-land settlers, the population of rodents increased. According to zoologists, with the elimination of rat-eating reptiles and various animals like jungle cats, number of rats increased manifold. They stressed the need for 'mechanical and natural prevention of fast rat breeding.