Rodent
Interaction with humans
Because rodents are a nuisance and endanger public health, human societies often attempt to control them. Traditionally, this involved poisoning and trapping, methods that were not always safe or effective. More recently, integrated pest management attempts to improve control with a combination of surveys to determine the size and distribution of the pest population, the establishment of tolerance limits (levels of pest activity at which to intervene), interventions, and evaluation of effectiveness based on repeated surveys. Interventions may include education, making and applying laws and regulations, modifying the habitat, changing farming practices, and biological control using pathogens or predators, as well as poisoning and trapping. The use of pathogens such as Salmonella has the drawback that they can infect man and domestic animals, and rodents often become resistant. The use of predators including ferrets, mongooses and monitor lizards has been found unsatisfactory. Domestic and feral cats are able to control rodents effectively, provided the rodent population is not too large. In the UK, two species in particular, the house mouse and the brown rat, are actively controlled to limit damage in growing crops, loss and contamination of stored crops and structural damage to facilities, as well as to comply with the law.
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