As residents all across Chicago continually complain of the city's high rat population, a new effort launched by the Chicago Bird Alliance aims to find a humane solution to the problem.
Teaming up with a national nonprofit organization, the advocacy group is administering rat birth control on peanut butter palettes in a drive to move away from poison in rodent control.
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WATCH HEREChicago's rat reputation has long been cemented, with Orkin naming the city the country's rattiest city each year for the past decade.
“We’re using poison still, right? And there’s still rats everywhere, so it doesn’t seem like it’s working,” Chicago Bird Alliance executive director Matt Iegleski said.
The organization said other cities that have adopted the more humane approach have seen a drastic reduction in rat population.
The peanut butter-based approach also aims to get rat poison out of the systems of other animals, with birds being susceptible to being exposed to the chemicals.
The first set of birth control boxes will hit the streets of Lincoln Park next month, part of the study's first phase that will later see the project expand to other Chicago neighborhoods.
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