On the Javastraat in Amsterdam East, dog Snack runs after his nose. Pied catcher Nico Kraaijeveld’s dog is trained to detect rats and he doesn’t have to put in much effort to do so. While wagging his tail, he sniffs along the facades and corners of the street. He stops, exactly at the spot where the catering business was recently forced to close its doors, and then Nico knows enough: “They are here too!”
It’s exactly the kind of scene that Ja21 has in mind. The party has submitted written questions about the possibility of using ferrets as a solution to the rat problem in the city. List leader Sytze Rijpkema refers to a successful trial that was adopted by the Rotterdam city council.
Natural enemy
Together with his ferrets and three dogs, Nico combats the rat problem in Rotterdam. According to him, it is a good method, but not the only solution: “It is a very nice addition to the pesticides that are already available, but we cannot take ferrets everywhere.”
Ferrets are the natural enemy of the rat, and with their slender bodies the animals can reach wherever the rats are. The ferrets drive the rodents outside. Once outside, the rats are killed immediately by the dogs, or captured and killed later.
The ferrets sometimes kill a rat underground themselves, but their main role is to hunt them down. In this way, dozens of rats can be killed in one day.
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