A rat hole in Beacon Hill that someone has tried to fix with stones and steel wool. Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The history of rats in Boston dates back to the American Revolution.
According to legend, Hessian mercenaries inadvertently brought the brown rat, or Rattus norvegicus, to the British colonies in grain crates on ships.
Countless generations later, the scurrying rodents remain a problem throughout Boston's neighborhoods; so much so that city officials launched the Boston Rodent Action Plan, a multi-agency initiative to curb the rat population, earlier this month.
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In the meantime, programmer Viviano Cantu is helping Boston residents figure out where to watch their step.
His new tool, Rats.Boston, is a live map of every reported rat sighting in the city. The tracker uses data from Boston 311 to show where the rodents are.
"This month of July saw the most rat sightings in the history of Boston ever for 311, and historically, August is much worse," Cantu told WBZ NewsRadio Monday near a hotspot in Beacon Hill. "The downtown area is one of the worst."
Viviano came up with the idea while trying to find a new apartment, and then figured other people could use it too. All told, the project took about a month.
Along with rats, the map also lists reported sightings of birds (seagulls, hawks, geese, turkeys), bugs (roaches, bees, wasps, termites), and other creatures like skunks, coyotes, and raccoons.
"It’s not like you’re tracking the critters themselves, like tagging them like a shark, but all the sightings get reported, and on the map you can kind of visualize what are the current hot areas," Cantu said.
Cantu said the smallest number of rat sightings happen in the Seaport, likely because all the new construction gives the rats nowhere to hide.
Since the tracker went live a few days ago, Cantu said the response has been fascinated, if not a little disgusted.
"People were surprised that there were that many rats in whatever area they are in," said Cantu.
Cantu told WBZ NewsRadio he plans to add Cambridge and Somerville to the map as well.
WBZ’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.
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