The Story of Rats: Their Impact on Us, and Our Impact on Them

What a great book on rats! It really explains a lot about what can only be seen as mankind's life partner. We may not have wanted their company but we're linked inextricably as spieces. This one is definitely going on my bookshelf to stay. It's also top-notch for anyone doing research on rats for school.

I bought THE STORY OF RATS by Anthony Barnett for my 14 year old granddaughter who is in an advanced placement science class at her high school, and who has an affinity for repulsive animals (she has a pet lizard she feeds live crickets). I ended up reading the book before I handed it to her, and, what an interesting little book it is. RATS is a paperback with reasonably large type, so easy to read and filled with illustrations and photographs, but more than that it's filled with interesting material (even though it may not be up to AP standards). Did you know that not only do rats eat human foods such as corn, rice and other grain, but, according to Barnett, humans have been known to eat rats? (The Hindu God Ganesha is accompanied by a rat, but Hindus have a proscription against eating them.) When Britain ruled the waves, British sailors found rats appetizing alternative to hard tack or starvation (apparently, rats cannot board modern ships as easily as they could board the old wooden ships, so they are no longer part of the sea-faring cuisine). However, even today, some folks in the far-flung places the British ships visited and populated with rats still eat them. Photos show markets where vendors sell rats roasted and strung up by their tails along with other butchered meat. Barnett discusses the bad things rats do such as eat human food stores and spread noxious diseases like the Bubonic Plague and Hanta virus, as well as the good things rats do, such as become pets or lab rats. The author includes chapters discussing the use of rats in experiments, so if you are squeamish about animal testing this may not the book for you (most of the experiments involve psychological studies, not physical torture). Nuclear testing by the US Navy suggest that if and when humans destroy the planet, rats will probably survive. On the other hand, Chernobyl, deserted by humans after the nuclear accident a few years ago, has returned to it's natural state of "wilderness" sans `Rattus' who just can't get along without humans. So, it seems even if rats can survive manmade follies, they may perish because they rely on humans for food and shelter.

Barnett has spent most of his life studying rats and writes an excellent book on their society, habits, and impact on humans. Although hated and feared by most people, Barnett's work with and observations of these rodents seems to have given him appreciation for the survivors rats are. Unsensationalized and respectful, Barnett offers an honest view of rats place among us and ours among them.

At any rate they should since we have created their habitats in, around and under our cities, towns and farms, and we feed them well. Occasionally we try to poison them but it never works for long. Usually, as Barnett, who is Emeritus Professor of Zoology at the Australian National University, explains they reject our poisons outright as something new in a familiar environment ("neophobia")--one of their clever tricks--and when we counter with one of OUR tricks (pre-baiting) we kill them all right, but they counter by upping their breeding schedule and soon the losses are made up.I think Barnett does a good job of making this an interesting read although the latter parts of the book are perhaps more scientific than some would like. He begins with the rat in history and literature, recalls the black plague and other rat-carried diseases, and then tells the story of how the rat became domesticated in the nineteenth century primarily as a laboratory animal to run mazes and push levers for rewards and punishments. He explains how this white albino rat has come to differ in its habits and traits from its wild counterpart, the so-called Norway rat, noting, for example, that lab rats are usually not neophobic. Instead they approach just about anything new. There is some interesting material on the black rat which tends to live in trees or on or near the top of dwellings while the Norway likes the ground and sewers. The material on the mole rat of India and the rice rat of Malaysia and some other species could have been expanded.Barnett goes into some of the research done on rats, both in the lab and in the field, and demonstrates just how hard it is to conduct useful and rigorous experiments and how easy it is to misread the findings. He looks into the mystery of rats seemingly dying because of stress and suggests that what kills them is a lowered immune system response to disease agents. (p. 170) There might be an unstated suggestion that stress can do the same thing to humans, perhaps to a lesser degree.I think that Barnett's excursion into the philosophy of science and the limitations of applying animal research to humans (with quotes from philosopher K. R. Popper and geneticist R.C. Lewontin) toward the end of the book might have worked better in some other volume. At any rate I would have preferred instead more material on Barnett's personal experiences with rats. The material he does give us from his early days in London during World War II and from his lifelong research and experience is interesting and could have been expanded, especially in a book like this aimed at a general readership. There are a number of black and white photos and drawings of rats, a Glossary, a list of References, and an Index. Bottom line: interesting and not nearly as repellant as a work on rats could easily be.

Whether you love rats, hate rats, or have no understanding of them at all, this is a great book. It's very objective, written in an accessible format, and absolutely fascinating.This book should be a must read for anyone who keeps rats as pets, as it lends a much better understanding of "rat psychology" than one would get from simple pet care books.