--- title: "Expert: Coronavirus Forcing Rats to Cannibalism, Infanticide" description: "Rats across the country are turning to cannibalism and eating their young as a result of the coronavirus outbreak." date: "2020-04-13" modified: "2020-04-13" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/expert-coronavirus-rats-cannibalism-infanticide" categories: - "Future Society" - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Pathogens" - "Viruses" tags: - "coronavirus" - "New York" - "rats" - "the digest" --- # Expert: Coronavirus Forcing Rats to Cannibalism, Infanticide ![Rats across the country are turning to cannibalism and eating their young as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.]() *\Image: Karsten Paulick via Unsplash/Futurism\* ## Rats, Foiled Again Rats across the globe are turning to cannibalism and even eating their young as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. "A restaurant all of a sudden closes now, which has happened by the thousands in not just New York City but coast to coast and around the world," urban rodentologist Bobby Corrigan [told *NBC News*](), "and those rats that were living by that restaurant, some place nearby, and perhaps for decades having generations of rats that depended on that restaurant food, well, life is no longer working for them, and they only have a couple of choices." ## Drastic Measures Without easy access to takeout and dumpsters, rats have to take drastic measures. "They're mammals just like you and I, and so when you're really, really hungry, you're not going to act the same — you're going to act very bad, usually," Corrigan told *NBC News*. "So these rats are fighting with one another, now the adults are killing the young in the nest and cannibalizing the pups." ## Rat Army It's literally survival of the fittest rats. "A new 'army' of rats come in, and whichever army has the strongest rats is going to conquer that area," Corrigan added. In the age of coronavirus, rats are getting unprecedented access to city streets. [Viral videos]() on social media, for instance, show swarms of rodents taking over the French Quarter in New Orleans. Other cities have had to get creative with Washington, DC officials resorting to [enlisting feral cats](). **READ MORE:** [Starving, angry and cannibalistic: America's rats are getting desperate amid coronavirus pandemic]() \[*NBC News*\] **More on rats:** *[Our Attempts to Kill Rats Are Making Them Evolve at Super Speed]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()