NEW YORK (AP) - Some big cheeses held a summit Wednesday at Columbia University on how to get rid of the rats that seem to be overrunning New York City.
''Twenty years ago this city had a concerted effort to fight rats,'' rat expert Randy Dupree said somewhat wistfully. ''That stopped, and now we've seen a burgeoning of the rodent population. What we need is everyone to join in on a war on rats.''
About 250 rat-weary citizens turned out for the Rat Summit, at which academics, health officials, politicians and bureaucrats focused on Public Enemy No. 1 - Rattus norvegicus, commonly known as the Norwegian rat.
''Rat rage'' appears to be on the rise in New York. At a recent rally on the steps of City Hall, demonstrators chanted such slogans as, ''One rat, two rat, three rats, four, everywhere I look there's more and more.''
The city now has two official rat hot lines and a new City Council committee that focuses specifically on vermin, and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has designated an official as the city's ''rat czar.''
''We make unprecedented efforts to kill rats,'' Giuliani said. ''We kill more of them than any place else. We probably lead the country in rat killing.''
City Councilman Bill Perkins proposed banning the city's wire-mesh trash receptacles because they make it easy for rats to get to the garbage.
Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota, the rat czar, urged everyone to be more sanitary.
Bruce Colvin, who works as a consultant on rats, said estimates of 8 million rats in the city are almost certainly exaggerated, as are tales about about foot-long monsters roaming the sewers and coming out at night to feed on stray cats and lost puppies.
To control rats, Colvin insisted, New York should not focus on killing rodents by placing packets of poison in abandoned lots and on subway tracks, but should instead concentrate on eliminating the animals' food, particularly grease from restaurants.
''For rats, grease is a high-protein food source,'' he said. ''It allows them to kick up their sex drive. You know the rest.''
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