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Hey Spencer, just wanted to say a big thank you for your excellent research and clear writing on ContraPest. Your work is really helping people to understand this complex issue better.
I live in NYC and the rat problem is pretty bad here. A lot of it has to do the unfettered access the rats have to food in trash. Unlike most other cities, NYC was built without any alleyways, making it very hard to keep trash contained. The trash ends up in bags on the sidewalks where rodents can easily chew through the plastic and have an all-they-can-eat buffet.
I’ve been thinking about this and recently someone pointed out that some cities in Europe are using underground garbage bins.
These bins could help cut down the rat problem by making it harder for them to get to the trash. It’s a non-pharmaceutical intervention that could significantly cut down on the rat population!
Thanks again for your great work, Spencer. It’s really making a difference. :)
Thank you for your support, Constance!
Good to say so! But I encourage people to use “I” precisely in order to push back against formalspeak norms. Ostentation is bad for the mind, and it’s hard to do good research while feeling pressure to be formal.
Regardless though, I trust your abstract. Thanks. : )
Yeah, it’s a hard habit to kick when you almost always write with multiple authors! It seemed like a more effective use of my time to flag it than to try to edit it all out and miss some anyway. What makes you say using “we” makes it hard to do good research?
Edit: That question might come from an incorrect interpretation. I interpreted the third sentence in your comment as a relationship like [pressure to use “we” → pressure to be formal → harder to do good research]. But you might have meant [pressure to be formal → a. pressure to use “we” b. harder to do good research]?
Anyway, I think I agree with you in that I don’t think that necessarily people should use “we” in formal writing, or that writing on the forum should be formal. This post just felt easier to write in a quasi-formal style, and I am used to writing formal pieces with multiple authors, so that’s why using “I” feels kind of forced for me. Definitely not an attempt to be ostentatious or use a “formalspeak norm.” :)
Yes! The latter. I’m definitely a fan of using causal diagrams in sentences. It should just be native to the English language.
And I wasn’t really critiquing you. Just highlighting the benefits of not having to be formal. : )
“However, we are trying to obtain a copy of the necropsy report.”
I also wonder whether you were ever able to obtain that.
Here in Boston, our City Council held a hearing recently on Wisdom Good Works’ https://wisdomgoodworks.org/ Good Bites rodent birth control. It has undergone testing by WGW in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. In your piece, you allude to that product being under development; “made from the whole root extract of Tripterygiumwilfordii Hook F (TwHF), which contains triptolide”. Loretta Mayer who as you know had major responsibility for developing ContraPest and Good Bites wasn’t there at the hearing, but there was an impressively well-informed representative/spokesperson for the WGW nonprofit as part of an outstanding panel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1igYsoibpgg
-S
Thank you for your analysis. I am wondering if you were able to obtain the report from the necropsy of the sanctuary rat? Working on sterilization programs for feral cats, we found that colonies that reached a density of 20 or more animals were far more likely to succumb to ringworm, mange mites, feline panleukopenia, feline leukemia, and so on. As with cats, people wait until a population has already reached critical mass to implement programs by which time natural controls are already in play. The need for alternatives to rodenticides is dire, and your recommendation for well-controlled field studies is right on target.