Columbia Student's Study Debunks One Rat Per New Yorker Theory
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- It's been said that New York City has so many rats there is literally one for every person, but a new study claims those numbers are way off.
Columbia University doctorate student Jonathan Auerbach told the New York Times animals are "terrible survey respondents" so he attached rat complaints to 311 to building lots to determine the city's rat population, WCBS 880's Paul Murnane reported.
Study Finds Fewer Rats In New York City Than Originally Thought
The study estimated that there are 40,000 rat colonies in the city with about 50 rats living in each of them. That would amount to a population of just over 2 million rodents, debunking the theory that there is one rat per New Yorker in the city, 1010 WINS' John Montone reported.
New York City's population was 8,405,837 million in July 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The study is encouraging, but New Yorkers aren't convinced.
"That sounds too low. In New York? That sounds too low," a sanitation worker in Hamilton Heights told Murnane.
"I see millions of them at my job," another sanitation worker said.
Study Debunks One Rat Per New Yorker Theory
"I don't think so, man. There's still a lot of rats out here," one man told Montone. "They're going to have more babies, too."
Auerbach's work won a prize from the Royal Statistical Society of London.
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