Huge rats prowling Peckham Rye Common

[PrunellaGobsworth]

I was taking my little dog for a walk on Peckham Rye Common and we walked across the little water bridge, i looked across and saw about 5 rats scurrying around in the undergrowth, 2 of them were huge! never seen them that size before, about the size of a small cat. Needless to say i ran across that bridge and did'nt look back!

I reported it to the Park Ranger and he said, rats that size are all over London and that their getting bigger, he said he saw one big rat get into a fight with a cat and the cat lost!

Has anyone else noticed huge rats recently?

[Help-Ma-Boab]

Only leading the USA

[titch juicy]

Indeed. Giant Rats are gonna do for us before nuclear or ecological Armageddon.

They've already taken over government.

[rendelharris]

One to think about for the cat-haters, for I fear there are such people, on the EDF: it's estimated that if all domestic cats were removed the rat population would quadruple in months.

[Rosetta]

Foxes are great at removing rats.

[steveo]

Mr. Biggles would sort them out

https://www.petrescue.com.au/listings/543388

[Robert Poste's Child]

Wondering if this is an attempt at a wind-up by an existing forumite? Not sure why you'd pick this subject though.

However ... taking it at face value, it's normal to find rats around water, whether they're water rats (like Ratty in TWITW) or the common brown kind happily living off the food litter people leave behind. And why are rats always 'as big as cats'? Growing up in the country I saw a few that were genuinely cat-size and you'd know if you saw one - pretty scary and very bold.

[adonirum]

So that's where my pet Coypu and his mates scuttled off to. There was I just trying to give them a change of scenery from Norfolk.

[jaywalker]

At the last count nine cats in my street, no rats. The problem for cats is, however, that there is a specific skill in killing a rat rather than a mouse, and this has to be taught them by their mothers (unless they are very big cats in which case they can carry off pretty much anything e.g. rabbits, stoats) as rats are otherwise quite dangerous for them. Farm cats know how - so if large rats are becoming a problem we need to invite some of our cats' country cousins down (they might welcome the break from the idiocy of rural brexit-infested life).

[dulwichrat]

PrunellaGobsworth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> he said he saw one big rat get

> into a fight with a cat and the cat lost!

I am undefeated :-D

In fairness, that one on the common had been de-clawed. Speaking of which, your pooch could do with a pedicure. All that trip-trapping over my bridge put me right get off the old trainer I was gnawing. Many thanks.

[cactus]

Son and I often sit by the pond in Peckham Rye and play spot the rat, we never have to wait

more than a few minutes before we see one, they aren't particularly timid!

Walking through Loughborough Junction today, I saw a cat with a genuinely massive rat in its jaws, the spectacle was literally stopping traffic. I'd say the rat was about a third of the size of the cat. Interesting point about cats needing to be taught how to hunt bigger prey, hadn't thought about that, just assumed they would all have a go.

[Borky]

Rats serve a purpose, cats do not

[Robert Poste's Child]

You just need to open yourself to what cats have to teach us, Borky.

[Borky]

I read a Mog story once.

[jaywalker]

What cats have to teach us:

autonomy (contrary to heteronomy)

grace (Lalique, not soviet realism)

semiotics (multiple use of signs, overdetermination of sense)

tragedy (the expiry of the ninth life)

alterity (they territorialise, we share with other humans - we are not 'natural')

in-itself (they are, paradigmatically. But we are for-itself paradigmatically (Sartre): we are not them).

I have pictures of Foucault with cat, Derrida with cat, Kandinsky with cat, etc: they all were learning.

[Robert Poste's Child]

You forgot Schroedinger.

I was thinking about simple things like relaxing and allowing yourself to do what you want and feel what you feel in that moment - things a lot of us forget as adults. Cats relax so completely they lose their shape.

[jaywalker]

well, Schroedinger's cat was neither existent nor inexistent - so not sure if it was inappropriate to forget, or was it to remember, I am not sure I can figure it out.

Yes, cats are of their moment, and we too with them if we lose ourselves in them. But is this the best we can hope for, ourselves with others of our kind?