Siren song of female rats helps lure rodents into traps

Publicly released:
New Zealand
Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

New trials suggest that audio of female rats on heat could lure rats and mice to trap sites. Scientists from Wintec played the calls of the female Norway rats - higher pitched than humans can hear - in two forest areas. In one area monitored with cameras and tracking tunnels, rats and mice both seemed to show up more often in sites which had the audio playing, although there weren't enough numbers to be certain of this. The other forest had cameras and traps, with more rats were killed in sites with audio lures. The researchers say attracting rats like this could make it cheaper and easier to control their numbers.

Journal/
conference:
NZ Journal of Ecology
Organisation/s: Wintec
Funder: Research was funded by Wintec.
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