“Meet Kathleen Corradi, the New York Rat Czarina in Charge of Ending the Rat Plague”

“It will be necessary for the new yorkers seriously change their behavior and that they are equipped and educated in this fight, in addition to the resources that the city is putting in, to achieve changes on a large scale and sustainable in the long term”, he said.

Corradi explained, for example, that it will be necessary for citizens to become aware of pouring their organic waste into the new brown containers for composting, which have begun to be distributed in some neighborhoods of the city.

Tsarina “of killer instinct”

The appointment of a manager to curb the proliferation of snouted mammals in NY It has been accompanied by intrigue and some media attention, since the Mayor’s Office summoned the plaza last December in an advertisement in which it was looking for a “czar” with a “murderous instinct” and “thirst for blood” to “fight against the true ” New York enemy.

Although Corradi assures that she does not identify with that profile, she does feel comfortable with the title of czarina, with which the mayor informally baptized the position: “I think it is a very elegant way of drawing attention to a serious problem that affects the quality of life of New Yorkers (…). And I think anything that brings attention to this public health issue is important and great to make sure the message gets out.”

“8.5 million people live in our city. Everyone has had one experience with rats and, in general, it has been negative, so if Zarina it’s someone who brings a kind of coherence and organization to the whole city, that’s certainly what my job is going to be,” he added.

Faced with his new challenge, Corradi vindicates his resume and insists that in 2018 he worked with the city’s Department of Education to stop the proliferation of rats in 120 public schools, in which in about two years he managed to reduce the rodent population by 70 percent.

But in his battle She will not be alone, since from her position she will coordinate the efforts and resources of six municipal agencies, including Education, Parks, Small Businesses and Garbage Collection.

To do this, he stresses the importance of “breaking the silos” between municipal agencies to ensure that the most efficient techniques are used and that data and best practices are shared among all.

“And my task is to make sure that we are working smarter and more intensively using the existing staff and structures that we already have,” he added.

a matter of science

For the new rat czarinawho seems to have clear ideas, ending this plague is not a matter of magic, but of science.

“The science behind fighting rodent populations is to act where they live, prevent them from having access to shelter, and deprive them of food and water,” he stresses.

Then, continue, it’s time to put into play “innovative extermination techniques to make sure that population numbers are kept in check and do not migrate to new areas.”

Municipal authorities have identified four areas of the city as “rat mitigation zones”, where current efforts to fight these gray-furred neighbors are focused.

It’s about the Chinatown neighborhoods, East Village and Lower East Side, in the borough of Manhattan; the Harlem neighborhood, also in Manhattan; the Grand Cocourse area, in the Bronx and in the Brooklyn district: Bushwick, Bedford, Stuyvesant and Prospect Heights.

In fact, parallel to Corradi’s designation, the Mayor’s Office approved a budget of 3.5 million dollars, precisely to put an end to rats in the Harlem area, which has recently been defined as a zone of special interest against rats.