Rats

After more than a month of delay, the National Park Service dropped thousands of poisoned pellets over East Anacapa Island on Wednesday morning in a long-planned effort to kill its population of black rats. An animal advocacy group had tried to block the $700,000 eradication program in Channel Islands National Park, contending that the poison would harm other wildlife on the three islets of the island off the Ventura County coast. But a U.S.

Who knows what trials the rat named Sunny Jim endured in his days alone in the wilderness? Was he chased by voracious owls? Beset by marauding gangs of streetwise sewer rats? Did he yearn for a child who had lost him on a day's outing? His new owners--Hayley Huttenmaier and Nachshon Rose --can only guess. The little rat that they rescued, housed and fed isn't talking, of course.

By the end of the year, helicopters could drop tons of poison pellets in an attempt to exterminate all the rats inhabiting the rocky island off Ventura County under a plan the National Park Service released Tuesday. If the aerial assault works as planned, it could lead to a profusion of native plants, flowers and seabirds to replenish those damaged by marauding rodents, scientists say. But while rat eradication efforts have worked on some islands around the world, many such attempts have failed.

About half of the baby rats aboard the shuttle Columbia have unexpectedly died, mission scientists at Kennedy Space Center said. The baby rats, which were 9 days old when Columbia blasted off April 17, were test subjects for tests on how zero gravity affects the brain and nervous system. NASA officials said about half, 45 to 49, had died, apparently because their mothers were unable or unwilling to nurse them.

More baby rats have died aboard space shuttle Columbia, prompting a protest Tuesday from an animal rights group that accused NASA of having an "appalling record" in animal research. NASA's chief veterinarian, Joseph Bielitzki, said 50 rats had died aboard Columbia because of maternal neglect, an increase from the 45 deaths reported Monday. Mother rats weren't drinking enough water, and they shunned the young animals or simply did not produce enough milk, Bielitzki said.

Rats just want to have fun. The fact that rats can laugh, and do, is nothing new to scientists, but a researcher at Bowling Green State University found that the rodents most people consider filthy pests are also playful--and love to be tickled. "About a year ago, I literally came into the lab one morning and said, 'Let's go tickle some rats,' " said Jaak Panksepp, a psychobiologist. "As soon as we did it, it was 'Eureka!' This vocalization came on right away, and more intense than before.

Laboratory rats exposed to a Mozart sonata (K. 448) before and after birth are able to complete mazes more rapidly and with fewer errors than those exposed to minimalist music (a Philip Glass composition), white noise or silence, researchers from the University of Wisconsin report in the July issue of Neurological Research. The rats were exposed to the sounds before birth and for 60 days after, then tested in mazes for five days.

County officials say a rat found carrying bubonic plague in the city of Orange does not signal a threat to public health--but they are taking precautions all the same. No other incidents have been reported since the rat was caught and tested in mid-August, according to Orange County Health Care Agency officials. "We don't think it is a significant danger because we are on top of it," said James Webb, technical director for the vector-control district of the Health Care Agency.

A woman who found a rat sitting in her lap during an Air New Zealand flight from Los Angeles will be offered compensation, an airline spokesman said. The rodent was first spotted after the plane left Los Angeles. "Later in the flight, a passenger in business class felt something on her right leg, lifted her blanket and found the rat on her knees," said Cameron Hill, an airline spokesman. The name of the passenger was not released.

Scientists know the black rat by its Latin name, Rattus rattus, but to managers of Channel Islands National Park, the rodent may as well be Rattus non gratus. Reviled in films such as "Ben" and blamed for carrying fleas that spread plague across medieval Europe, rats have taken up residence with authority on Anacapa Island, 11 miles off the coast of Ventura. They probably got there from a shipwreck, perhaps aboard the Winfield Scott that ran aground during the Gold Rush.