Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hey BrainStuff, Lauren Bogobom here.

Humans have tolerated the haughty demeanor of cats for at least 10,000 years, in large part because our furry

feline friends are so good at keeping vermin like mice under control.

But research published in 2018 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution shows

that cats, while quite good at slaying small birds and mice, may have very little impact

on rat populations.

In 2017, a team of researchers made like a modern Pied Piper,

microchipping and monitoring about 60 rats living in a Brooklyn New York recycling center.

The team manipulated the rat population by unleashing various rat pheromones to see how those

chemicals would affect the rats behaviors. These experiments had an unintended side effect though as

feral cats probably attracted by the smell of potential prey slinked into the

building. At first the the researchers, apparently unfamiliar with the futility of hurting cats, tried

and failed to evict the unwanted felines.

Then they decided to capitalize on this unintended invasion by including the five cats in the study to see what effect they had on the rats.

With hundreds of video clips's evidence, scientists logged just 20 stalking attempts,

three kill attempts, and only two successful kills

by the cats during the 79-day experiment.

Most of the time, the cats ignored the rats. That kill

rate is pretty low. However, the researchers did note that for every additional

cat sighting a rat was 1.19 times more likely to seek shelter.

The researchers concluded that this might be the reason people have thought that cats are good at controlling a rat population.

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