What Is The Rat Population In Great Britain?

What Is The Rat Population Of Great Britain?

It is a common belief that there is one rat for every human being in the UK but is it actually true and where does the idea come from?

It probably originated in the book 'The Rat Problem' by an author called WR Boelter from 1909.  In it he described how he asked country dwelling people for their help. He asked if they actually considered it was reasonable to estimate that there was only one rat for each individual acre of farm land. To this they agreed.

He used this to approximate how many rats there were in the UK during that time.  As there were forty million acres of arable land and the population of humans in the UK during the time was also 40m this gives a ratio of one rat per person.

Recently Dr Dave Cowan recalculated the number based on more recent figures. He broke down the rat's habitats into residential, commercial, urban and others to give a more accurate estimate of 10.5 million.  This makes a human:rat ratio of 6:1.

The major problem rats bring to humans is the huge amount of damage they do to our belongings and equipment.  A study from 2009 showed that incredibly $9b worth of property damage is done by rats in the United States alone. So what can we do about it?  Thankfully there is a new product on the horizon. This aims to reduce this number by creating a rat-free area around the car, factory or commercial stock.  Visit the Hammer Technologies website to find out more about their rat-repellent flooring.