Science & Nature
Rat Birth Control Trial Coming This Summer to Lincoln Park
(Nigel Harris / iStock)
The latest tactic in Chicago’s ongoing war against rats is to attack the problem at the source — with birth control instead of poison.
The Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce is currently testing rat contraception and Lincoln Park is about to follow suit this summer with a pilot project of its own.
Conservation organizations are pushing for contraceptives as a preferred alternative to Chicago’s current primary weapon against the rodents: poisons known as anticoagulant rodenticides.
These rodenticides, which interfere with an animal’s ability to cycle Vitamin K and clot blood, are becoming less and less effective in rats, but are lethal to other creatures, including birds that prey on rats.
“This poison creates a toxic food web,” the Chicago Bird Alliance said in a statement.
The organization ramped up its opposition to rodenticides following the death in spring 2024 of a family of three great horned owls in Lincoln Park, including an owlet. All three were later confirmed to have died from rodenticide.
Where rats seem to have developed tolerance of rodenticides, birth control, on the other hand, neutralizes the rodent’s superpower: its ability to reproduce exponentially.
For the Lincoln Park trial, Chicago Bird Alliance is partnering with the Lincoln Park Zoo, Ald. Timmy Knudsen (44th) and the Lincoln Park Conservancy. The group is continuing to raise funds in support of the project.
Maureen Murray, a wildlife disease ecologist who heads up the Chicago Rat Project at Lincoln Park Zoo’s Urban Wildlife Institute, will lead a study of the efficacy of the contraception on rats, as well as any effects on other wildlife.
“Before we use these products at a larger scale, we have to make sure it doesn’t affect other animals,“ Murray previously told WTTW News.
Earlier attempts at deploying birth control for rats weren’t successful, in large part due to the delivery mechanism. It was administered as a liquid, which was difficult to control.
New versions have been developed in pellet form. The Lincoln Park trial is sourcing pellets from Wisdom Good Works.
“If successful, we will work in partnership with the Department of Streets and Sanitation to replicate in other wards,” Chicago Bird Alliance said.
