Giant rat caught, killed with pitchfork

upi ^ | Aug. 27, 2011

[JoeProBono]

NEW YORK, - A city housing worker says he bagged a 3-foot rat with a pitchfork at a New York apartment complex.

Jose Rivera, 48, told the New York Daily News that two other giant rats escaped.

"I hit it one time and it was still moving," Rivera said of the rat he stabbed at Marcy Houses. "I hit it another time and that's when it died. I'm not scared of rats but I was scared of being bitten."

Naomi Colon, head of the apartment complex's tenant association, told the Daily News huge rats have been sighted there for at least six years.

"The residents have told me that they've seen it running around with other rats," she said.

Animal experts said based on a photo of the dead rodent -- about 3 feet long from its nose to the tip of its tail -- it was a Gambian pouched rat, often kept as a pet, although imports have been outlawed for several years.

Paul Calle of the Wildlife Conservation Society said the Gambian rat can't reproduce with other species of rats because they are from a different genus.

The size of the Gambian rat has Marcy House residents unnerved.

"Even the cats are afraid of the rats. They get together and gang up on the cats," Stephanie Davis told the newspaper.

[JoeProBono]

[Fresh Wind]

Here's a giant rat that needs to meet a pitchfork...

[Cheetahcat]

Looks like a Obama supporter that will not make 2012.

[Huskrrrr]

Beat me to it! :0)

[Cheetahcat]

“Beat me to it! :0)”

LMAO Conservative minds think alike!

[JoeProBono]

[Average Al]

"I hit it another time and that's when it died."

Sounds like eating at a Sushi restaurant. ;-)

[jersey117]

Catch of the Day

[AnotherUnixGeek]

it was a Gambian pouched rat, often kept as a pet

This is one of the few legitimate uses for government I can see - preventing the importation of mega-rats, pythons capable of crushing and killing grown men, face-eating baboons, etc. for idiot pet owners to buy and then turn loose so they can plague the rest of us.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Very interesting story....I can imagine how scary that must’ve been. What did you do, slam the door shut real quick?

[FrogMom]

Nonsense! He can still vote!

[Recovering_Democrat]

BTW, did the exterminator kill the rats, or did you just weld the door shut?

[Jack Hydrazine]

And what do you think DemocRats will do when they have the light shined fully on them?

[fireman15]

30 years ago I had a confrontation with a Norwegian warf rat nearly as big as that one who lived near our city dump.

I swerved to avoid what I thought was a cat in the road. Afterward I realized that it was a huge rat. I did a U-turn in my 67 Ford Galaxie 500 and tried to hit it on another next pass, but it jumped out of the way at the last minute. I made a couple of more attempts before the rat took a right turn and ran up the gated road that goes to Cheney Stadium. I got out of the car as the rat trotted under the gate. My girl friend at the time got out also. I started throwing rocks at it. When I hit him with one, he turned around and charged us. My girlfriend and I had to take a few steps back, but I managed to hit him with another rock and the rat decided he'd had enough and ran up the hill toward Foss High School and took refuge in some bushes. He was a worthy adversary; I felt a little bad about harassing him.

[windcliff]

I got it:)

[Carling]

Did somebody call a 3' tall Rat?

[Chode]

anybody remember Does your child know the difference between a cat... and a rat???

[kaylar]

Unknown Origin is a great film, but I have a soft spot for Canada's Deadly Eyes. I remember watching the movie , and upon seeing the classroom scene, I thought how refreshing it was to have college age actors portraying college students-the actors were obviously all 20-25 or so. Then the dialogue revealed the classroom was supposed to be in a High School...The big climactic scene had a bunch of giant rats run down a subway staircase, and eat alive the passengers. Now, I already knew the "rats" were dachshunds in rat suits, and as a dachshund victim owner, that's what I was waiting to see. So the "rats" run down the steps with that unmistakeable wangling gait, it's supposed to be terrifying , and we're laughing because the wiener dog origin was too obvious!

[Cheetahcat]

“Nonsense! He can still vote!”

Good Point.

[Defiant]

Better than Willard? Hard to imagine. Also, I never knew it was a genre.