Restaurants test our rodent readiness

ILLUSTRATION: LEO MICHAEL

Perhaps it’s fitting that Rodent Awareness Week takes place Oct. 18-24 this year. As we go to press, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared restaurants in New York City could only operate at 25 percent indoor capacity after Sept. 30, and even then with limitations.

By the time the National Pest Management Association’s Professional Pest Management Alliance (NPMA’s PPMA) social media and other efforts for Rodent Awareness Week take place, we’ll be better equipped to analyze how Cuomo’s restaurant mandate affected rodent populations in the Big Apple.

While New York City remains its own microenvironment in many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic likely will see restaurants across the country doing decreased business as people hunker down this fall. We go more in-depth on this development here: New York governor mandates restaurant capacity limits for NYC

This month’s cover story features “The Hunger Games: Rodents scavenge for food as the pandemic reduces restaurant waste.” Meanwhile, frequent contributor Dr. Hanif Gulmahamad, BCE, shares his most-recent one-man, snap-trap-focused battle with roof rats in his backyard.

Rats and mice have challenged PMPs for centuries, but in 2020, it seems circumstances have upped the stakes even more. Keep fighting the good fight.