{"id":277434,"date":"2026-06-25T02:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/277434\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T02:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:56:12","slug":"nyc-mice-and-rats-are-evolving-building-immunity-to-pesticides-and-figuring-out-deadly-traps-new-wild-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/277434\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC mice and rats are evolving &#8212; building immunity to pesticides and figuring out deadly traps: new, wild study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019re winning the rat race.<\/p>\n<p>The Big Apple\u2019s rodents are evolving to become smarter and stronger than their biggest predators \u2014 humans. <\/p>\n<p>House mice are genetically mutating to build immunity against household pesticides, while rats are simply figuring out how to escape deadly traps, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/ps.70833?af=R\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">a study published this month. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mice are genetically evolving to survive eating poison.  trancedrumer \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have adapted to human strategy, which means we have to understand more and we have to become much smarter than them,\u201d Jin-Jia Yu, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Entomology at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rutgers.edu\/news\/urban-rodents-may-be-evolving-against-common-poisons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences<\/a>, told The Post.<\/p>\n<p>Yu and his Rutgers partner, Changlu Wang, sampled DNA of 300 house mice and Norway rats from dense urban areas in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC and New York \u2014 the latter of which all came from the Big Apple.<\/p>\n<p>They soon discovered the rodents were evolving, though the species were advancing in different ways than one another.<\/p>\n<p>A whopping 70% of pesky house mice had a genetic mutation that rendered anticoagulant poisons \u2014 the most common form of rodenticide \u2014 useless.<\/p>\n<p>Big Apple rats are becoming smarter when it comes to escaping traps, the study found.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the mice eat the poison, they can still function normally, basically. That\u2019s why they are more tolerant,\u201d explained Wang, an extension specialist in the Department of Entomology.<\/p>\n<p>Mice have built up immunity after decades of letting their curiosity get the best of them, leading them to consume unfamiliar food sources, including poison baits.<\/p>\n<p>Much more suspicious by nature, rats are not evolving to have the same mutation at the same rate \u2014 but the sneaky squeakers seem to be developing in their brains.<\/p>\n<p>A study of rats, particularly in the Bronx, found that the rodents have become expert escape artists.<\/p>\n<p>Rutgers researchers Changlu Wang, right, and Jin-Jia Yu, authored the study.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a lot of video clips showing that the rats can avoid the physical traps, like snap traps and sticky traps, which are used very frequently by pest control professionals. They can spend one week or 300 approaches before they even touch the traps,\u201d Yu said.<\/p>\n<p>The findings indicate that mice and rats are adapting to the decades-long war with humans, and that big cities may need to reconsider methods for keeping the disease-carrying critters at bay.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing use of rodenticide could, in the long run, be more harmful to other city wildlife that are not being targeted by the poison, the scientists warn.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/23\/real-estate\/2-kids-bitten-injured-by-mice-in-nycha-apartment-lawsuit\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The whiskered pests will continue<\/a> to eat the rodenticide without consequence, but risk poisoning birds, coyotes and other predators that feast on rodents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a lot of video clips showing that the rats can avoid the physical traps,\u201d Yu said. Wang Lab<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are studies showing that all of the wild animals that eat roadkills, they contain rodenticide poisons,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s more likely to be transferred to the predators.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The findings also indicate that there could be future health concerns if mouse and rat populations aren\u2019t curbed in new ways. The rodents contaminate food, damage buildings and infrastructure and can spread diseases and parasites.<\/p>\n<p>While more research is needed, Wang and Yu suggest that city leaders explore non-chemical exterminations, particularly those that focus on prevention and sanitation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re winning the rat race. The Big Apple\u2019s rodents are evolving to become smarter and stronger than their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,9,197,56,63,65,64,6389,34595,19747,32914,11322,58],"class_list":["post-277434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-rats","tag-rodents","tag-rutgers","tag-scientists","tag-study-says","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}