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Comment by CryptoPunk | Hacker News Reader

That last line might actually lead to the solution. Have a rat tax levied on land owners, in proportion to their alottment of land, and how many rats government officials find in the district where the respective land holdings are situated, and empower land owners to appoint whichever rat exterminator that they like for their district. I imagine that will lead to the incentives needed to solve the problem.

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I can only see the image of a man they call Cat Driver, the bane of rats. His pack of ferocious felines, about three score, their leashes bound in his callous hands, trained in the deadly art of Ea'tin A'Ra-t, they track and murder every poor beady-eyed non-soul unfortunate enough to be within a league of a nose.

Then when we're overrun by the cats, we'll unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes to keep their population in check. Then when we're overrun by snakes, we have a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

https://youtu.be/3f5viRoaZNw?t=89

Fun fact, professional rat hunters tend to prefer Dachshunds over cats; they’re easier to train and will hunt on command rather than whim. It’s no good to bring cats only to watch them start murdering pigeons, or take a nap.

Dachshunds over terriers?

Dachshunds were bred to get into burrows, hence the sausage shape.

'Dachshund' literally translates to badger-hound; they're bred to go down burrows and drive out badgers.

Just use a magic pipe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin:

The legend dates back to the Middle Ages, the earliest references describing a piper, dressed in multicolored ("pied") clothing, who was a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizens refuse to pay for this service as promised, he retaliates by using his instrument's magical power on their children, leading them away as he had the rats.

I assume you mean this rat tax would be instead of the rat bounty. If that is the case, then I agree it would probably be a better solution than the rat bounty.

But, as long as we are exploring alternate solutions to the original problem, my feeling is that it would be better overall to spend more on garbage collection and street cleaning.

It might also lead to significant poisoning/extermination of wildlife other than rats. (Feral cats are cheap and “all natural” for example.)

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