Before the establishment of the High Dam, flood waters were sweeping the land of Delta and the valley and killing rats within their holes. Rats and rodents spread in Egypt only after the establishment of the High Dam, which controlled water. These words were said by Dr. Hassan El-Deeb, international expert on rodent control, when he tried to give reasons for the enormous numbers of rats in areas adjacent to the River Nile. These rats have become a source of danger after the plague spread in Libya.
El-Deeb, a professor at the Agricultural Research Center, said the number of rats increased because we do not dispose of the waste of dredging and cleaning up canals and waste dumps, which are natural environments for breeding, especially as rats have a high reproductive efficiency. After the agricultural expansion in desert areas, rats have become more dangerous on agricultural production, as there were no natural enemies to rats during the last period, due to irrational use of chemical pesticides.
The natural enemies of rats include predatory birds, reptiles, foxes, mongooses and wild cats. These animals eat mice, thus reducing their growing number.
Rats on the Egyptian-Libyan border belong to species coexisting with human beings. These species include the Norwegian, climbing and small rats. It is the rat flea that carries the plague to humans, El-Deeb said.
