Boston is waging an all-out war on rats

Gayla Cawley, Boston Herald on Sep 24, 2026

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BOSTON — An evening rodent walk showed the ways Boston is battling rats, by piloting different types of technology, pumping lethal carbon monoxide into the ground, and unleashing rat-killing dogs to try to eliminate the pesky problem.

Anti-rat enthusiasts descended on downtown Boston Wednesday night for a rat walk hosted by the city that provided an up-close look at some of the mitigation strategies that were discussed at the two-day National Urban Rat Summit, which wrapped up the following evening with remarks from Mayor Michelle Wu.

“I think one of the reasons why we’re having the National Rodent Summit here in Boston is because we are continuing to explore different tools and strategies,” said Luke Hines, co-chair of the Boston Rodent Action Plan. “Rats are very smart, and so they continue to learn and adapt, and that’s what we’re doing here in the city.”

Hines is the designated point person for the city’s rodent action plan that was released two years ago and provided the road map for the mitigation strategies being piloted across the city and shared with summit attendees this week.

“We’re bringing together the world’s leading experts to Boston, where we are an innovative city, to continue to grow, and I think that that’s something that we’re going to take away from this summit is there’s new things that we can continue to explore,” Hines told The Boston Herald during the rat walk.

Summit attendees who joined the evening walk were shown how the city is using terrier dogs to sniff out and kill rodents and moving toward other methods of lethality. The city has been phasing out older methods of using second-generation anticoagulants, or rat poison, that the plan came out strongly against.

The city has seen success with using machines to pump carbon monoxide into the ground where burrows are present to euthanize the rats.

“With rodenticides, when the rat dies, they tend to die like right in your walkway, and it’s more of a spectacle,” said Brendan Sheehan, an environmental health inspector for the city after demonstrating how the machine works. “This, in theory, they die mostly in the ground and you’re not seeing it.

“It is effective,” Sheehan added. “It is killing anything in the ground.”

Carbon monoxide is also safer for other animals who feed on rats. The hawks who frequent the Boston Common and Public Garden where the machine was being used may have gotten sick after eating a rat killed by rodenticides, but wouldn’t be affected after feeding on a rat killed by carbon monoxide, Sheehan said.

The city is also using artificial technology through a partnership with Basis AI to fight rats, Hines said.

“They have a data collection tool, but it’s a little bit different, where it records audio vocalization as well as gets thermal imagery of rats, and based on those audio recordings and vocalizations, we’re able to measure the amounts of rats that are present at a certain location,” Hines said.

“Right now, we’re really testing a lot of different tools and strategies, working with a lot of different companies to better understand what works best for Boston and what will make the most sense for us to invest in long term,” Hines added.

The rat walk ended near a tree downtown, which is one of a number of trees that have been covered with different products to deter rats from burrowing and becoming a nuisance.

“Ultimately, we want to make them uncomfortable,” said John Ulrich, assistant commissioner of ISD Environmental Services.

Other strategies focus on containerization of trash to try to starve out rats.

Hines said he believes the war on rats is one that can be won in Boston.

“I think that we can definitely make sure that we are doing our part to reduce the rodent population across the city and improve the quality of life for residents,” Hines said, “which is really the goal of the Boston Rodent Action Plan.”