Feds Collect Giant Rats in Florida

AP ^ | November 29, 2006 | MARGARET EBRAHIM, Associated Press Writer

[Palladin]

AP: Feds Collect Giant Rats in Florida By MARGARET EBRAHIM, Associated Press Writer 3 hours ago

As the rising sun danced across Florida's coastal waters, government workers in shorts and T-shirts knelt in a grassy island field and plucked wriggling rats from traps laid the night before. These weren't just any rats. They were 3-pound, 35-inch-long African behemoths. They squirmed as the workers, wearing protective gloves, removed green radio collars that had been tracking the rodents' movements. All 18 of the animals were carted away for research.

Darin Carroll kept a watchful eye on that dawn mission at Florida's Grassy Key Island. Carroll is no ordinary G-man. He's a disease hunter determined to stop the next outbreak.

Carroll works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and for three years he has painstakingly tracked the journey of Gambian rats from their African homeland, through the exotic pet trade, and to U.S. homes.

His quest is to prove what many scientists suspect: that African rodents imported as pets caused a monkeypox outbreak in the Midwest in 2003 that sickened dozens of adults and children with a virus related to smallpox. Scientists suspect Gambian rats may play a role.

Similar outbreaks have occurred in Africa.

While no one died from the U.S. outbreak, it sent warning alarms about the potential dangers of importing exotic pets captured in the wild.

Florida and U.S. officials are trying to raise enough money to kill off the Gambian rats that have proliferated on Grassy Key Island, just a few miles from the coast of one of the country's most populous states. The rats were imported to the island a few years ago.

"We tested about 10 to 20 rats a year ago," Carroll explained. "They were never exposed to monkeypox."

...more at link

[gb63]

Don't you mess with Willard. He is a loyal member of the other party - voted twice.

[Graybeard58]

More than 20 replies and nobody has posted a picture of drunk fat ted yet!

[windchime]

Grassy Key Island:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassy_Key

Now, if we could just confine ALL the rats there.....

[P.O.E.]

[YOUGOTIT]

"I dont know the answer, but people are idiots to bring in non native animals as pets and then let them escape into the wild."

They have released so many snakes (the big pythons) that they are now a danger in the Everglades and one even tried to or may have swallowed an alligator. Saw one on the news the other day that was over 15 feet long.

[Louis Foxwell]

I dont know the answer, but people are idiots to bring in non native animals as pets and then let them escape into the wild. susie

Does this include the adoption of wild babies from Africa?

How do you imagine bees and dogs got here?

[Palladin]

Thanks for all the witty and funny replies...and for the serious ones, too.

No pic of Teddy yet?

[gb63]

You insisted!

[rottndog]

I'm not too late, am I?

[Palladin]

Now THAT'S a giant 'Rat!

[Guenevere]

bttt

[Fairview]

Aw, he's adorable! No wonder people want them for pets.

[cricket]

Just what we need--one more disease to worry about--monkeypox

Pox or not. . .how many heart atacks have they caused? One of these things would stop mine; in a heart-beat, for sure. . .

[spectre]

Our cat, the mighty hunter..would bag that Rat in a heart beat.

sw

[ICE-FLYER]

They forgot about Kerry and Kennedy in Mass and Schumer and Clinton in New York. Now THERE are some big rats they could have caught!!

[Salgak]

Rodents of Unusual Size ? Frankly, I don't think they exist. . . . (evil grin)

[LibKill]

Damn! That's the only (4-legged) rat I ever saw that was big enough to put a leash on.

[firebrand]

Maybe they were deer that had lost their antlers.

[brytlea]

Yeah, we live down here in S. FL and it's amazing all of the non native species we have here. I'm always seeing something and when I look it up discover it's from somewhere else.
susie

[brytlea]

Wild babies?
What a weird post.
susie