living in an old farm house, where rodents can be a problem, with feed and manure and old buildings providing , food and shelter for rats and mice, this year is exceptionaly cold,and now everything is frozen solid, so rodents can dig and tunnel, and all the water is frozen, so the rodents are having a hard time, invading looking for food and water and warmth, and I am doing my best to be inhospitable, rat, bat, splat.
Also the preditors are finding it easier to get them as rodents are forced to expose themselves, I even had a close encounter with an ermine, which is one tiny sleek, fancy killing machine, huge eyes for the size of the head.
Rats can not survive outside of areas without human development in areas with hard winter freezes, and face heavy predation by snakes further south, so are again limited to human and snake(other preditor) free areas, like islands.
Also rats are essentialy imune to poisons that were deadly to them, and are likely becoming imune to whatever is thrown at them now.
So numbers will be up, and the reasons for that will vary.
I dont like rats at all, and study them, as I hunt them, and other vermin.
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