For the first time ever, New York City has a person in charge of the city’s rat infestation. Kathleen Corradi was given the title of citywide director of rodent mitigation by New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The title has been nicknamed the “rat czar” since she is in charge of decreasing the number of rats in the city.

Rats have been a big problem for the large city for more than a century, but Corradi has said she will get rid of them. This is an incredibly bold statement, seeing as there are an estimated two million rats in the city. However, there have already been efforts put in place to reduce the number of rats. Corradi will work with urban rodentologist Robert Corrigan who has been using censors to study the rats. 

Before this role, Corradi was in the education field as a teacher and even helped start New York’s Zero Waste School program. Following that, she assisted in rodent reduction efforts, so she is no stranger to rats and their presence in the city. 

In order to decrease the number of rats, Corradi says that she wants to center the focus on food waste reduction. This seems to be the best way to prevent more rats, to stop them at the source. While the city could trap and dispose of rats, managing two million of them is quite a challenge. With Corradi’s successful contribution to the Zero Waste School program, she has some background knowledge that will prove to be useful.

Along with decreasing food waste, Corradi has also plans to increase full-time and part-time workers, specifically in Harlem. Hopefully, these efforts will prove to be effective and could be used in other parts of the city. 

Even with the sole job of getting rid of the rats, Corradi has a tough challenge ahead of her. The rats are not expected to be gone in an instant, but time will tell and hopefully, the city will have a significant decrease in rats in the future.