# legalizing rats.



## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

hello everybody.

i live in iceland and there are pet rats banned.because the people who run this country say that the rats could escape and destroy icelandic nature.

so me and a group of people are trying to get some information about this topic...could pet rats live in icelandic nature?

so i want to ask you guys how much cold can pet rats live in? and do you think that pet rats could live in icelandic nature?

i hope to get some good answers thanks.


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## ladylady (Apr 5, 2007)

What are the temperatures they would have to deal with?
Are their allready rats native to iceland?


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## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

there are FEW pet rats in iceland that are legal but when more people are asking for pet rats they get no as an answer. but there are also some wild rats who live in icelandic nature such as:black rat and the brown rat.

well it's very cold in the winters but the summers are a little hoter but is it just the weather they have to deal with isn't it hard for them to get the proper food and stuff like that.

if anyone can tell me how much cold they can deal with please write it down here.


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## ladylady (Apr 5, 2007)

Well rats seem to surive Scottish winters well. If there are rats allready living in Iceland in the wild how would a few more change the ecosystem?
Someone else will help with which rats fancy rats are decended from but I'd say its like saying not dogs in a country that has wolves!


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## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

you got a point there.but do you think PET rats could live in icelandic nature i mean are pet rats and the wild rats the same thing?

i want to get pet rats so bad but the people who run the country say that they could escape from their owners and destroy icelandic nature.so if we can unproof that...pet rats will be legal in iceland.


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## ladylady (Apr 5, 2007)

Yeah, alot of people on here will say fancy rats cant survive in the wild but I have read accounts of it. You could eather prove fancy rats are to domesticated to survive in your climate and onditions or you could prove fancy rats are so closely related to wild rats they would make no impact in environment and it inhabitants. Google origins of fancy rats and fancy rats living in the wild


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## OnlyOno (Apr 4, 2007)

i would say that yes, a fancy rat would survive just as well as a normal rat in the wild, on accounts of being able to fend for themselves and find food, etc. however, the reason that wild rats are either black or dark brown is that those are good camoflauge colors, so i would say that any unnatural color, or any "fancy" rat, would be more likely to be quickly spotted and eaten in the wild.

i suppose that iceland is worried and basing some worry on what happened to hawaii and rats. rats were brought to hawaii on ships by accident, but hawaii has no large natural predators and the rats ate many of the eggs of the hawaiian geese, that laid their eggs on nests on the ground. mongoose (i think) were released because mongoose eat rats, but the mongoose thought, hey, why eat a rat when there are eggs right here on the ground? and thus hawaii has huge rat problems and is now very strict about what pets can be kept there to protect native species.

i would say that for iceland though, if iceland already has rats living on it, then there are also already predators that probably specialize on rats. adding a few escaped pet rats would only feed a predator a little better for a day, and the damage that the fancy rat would do to the ecosystem would be minimal. basically, a hooded pet rat will eat some nature for a little bit, but it will be quickly seen and although it has equal chances of survival otherwise, i would say that predation rates for fancy rats would be higher and thus they would not do as well in the wild.

in any case, you'll need some hard facts to support any argument, and although any rat lover would say "YES! get rats on iceland!" you might be better off just doing some research on your own. iceland authorities might not be interested in "facts" that come from some rat-lover's personal webpage, etc.

good luck though!


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## Forensic (Apr 12, 2007)

Pet rats in the wild will have a harder time with finding food and surviving, because they haven't developed the knowledge for it. However, their instincts are intact. It's somewhat like feral cats or dogs. They don't live well, but eventually, they figure it out.


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## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

thanks for the tips  but it's one more thing where pet rats are legal how's it going? i mean...had any pet rats escape'd and destroy anything? remember we are talking about pet rats not wild rats.


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## Forensic (Apr 12, 2007)

That's the issue. I'm assume that Iceland doesn't have wild rats.

Around here, everything knows how to deal with rats. Birds and other animals prey on them, people seal them out, etc.

But if you introduce a rat into an area where it has no predators, they will take over.


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## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

iceland has wild rats allready that's why i think it's stupid to bann the pet rats.

but tell me how much cold can pet rat live in.

i'm trying to get as much information as i can get because i really REALLY want pet rats.


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## ladylady (Apr 5, 2007)

Fancy rat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

R. rattus
R. norvegicus

The fancy rat or pet rat is a domesticated breed of the Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus) or, more rarely, of the Black Rat (R. rattus). The name "fancy rat" has nothing to do with the "fanciness" of their appearance but derives from the meaning of "to fancy". Thus, one who keeps pet rats is said to be involved in "rat fancy."

The origin of the modern fancy rat is probably the rat-catchers of the late 19th century who trapped rats and were paid by town governments per rat, and who also kept certain rats for exhibition/gambling fights. They began breeding rats and became attached to some as they discovered how intelligent and trainable rats can be. One of the most famous of these rat catchers was Jack Black, ratcatcher to Queen Victoria, who became known for breeding and selling pet rats around 1840-1860. Rats became more and more domesticated and people enjoyed them since they are easily bred, social and intelligent[1] pets. The first rat show was held in 1901 in England. Beatrix Potter, author of the "Peter Rabbit" series of children's books, had a white pet rat of which she was very fond, and in remembrance of which she dedicated the story "The Roly-Poly Pudding". Ratkeeping grew in popularity in the 1970s, leading to the formation of the British National Fancy Rat Society in 1976.

So domestic rats havent been domestic for very long in comparison to dogs, so they probably retain a lot of there wildness. Iceland allready has balck and brown rats living wild so the relese of a few close ancestors to join the current population would make little difference. A fancy rat might be less praqcticed at being wild and possibly more brightly coloured than your average wild rat so would survive less well. Possibly though due to better genetics in the fancy??? they would survive longer than wild rats-its environment v genetics,


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## ladylady (Apr 5, 2007)

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/50/2/367.pdf

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p7271v768u45134l/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=491310&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/aps/1998/00000163/00000003/art00010

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9246387&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3020346&dopt=Abstract

http://ajplegacy.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/220/2/333.pdf

Some usefull search words
homestasis thermoragulation hypothermia core temp tolerance survival adaption domestic fancy pet 


Introduction

What happens if you bring a wild animal into captivity? Because of its "hardy" constitution, is it actually more fit than its "degenerate" domestic cousins? What happens to wild animals that are kept for generations in captivity? http://www.ratbehavior.org/WildAndDomesticRats.htm

http://www.rathelp.org/WildVsDomesticated.html

http://www.napak.com/fancy_rats.html

Received: 1 April 1981 Accepted: 15 May 1981 
Abstract The oft-repeated concern for the lack of behavioral comparability of domestic rats with wild forms ofRattus norvegicus is unfounded. Laboratory rats appear to show the potential for all wild-type behaviors, including the most dramatic social postures. Moreover, domestics are capable of assuming a feral existence without difficulty, one where they readily behave in a fashion indistinguishable from wild rats. The one behavioral difference that is clearly established concerns performance in laboratory learning paradigms. The superiority of domestics in these laboratory tasks speaks more to quieting the concerns of degeneracy theorists than to problems of using domestic Norway rats as subjects representative of their species.

Key Words Rattus norvegicus - wild rats - domestication - feralization

Comparative studies of wild and domestic rats: Some difficulties in isolating the effects of genotype and environment
Richard K. Lore *, Kevin J. Flannelly
Department of Psychology, Douglass College, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick

*Correspondence to Richard K. Lore, Department of Psychology, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903

Keywords
agonistic behavior â€¢ wild versus domestic rats â€¢ genotype versus environment

Abstract
Virtually all previous behavioral comparisons of wild and domestic rats indicate that many components of the wild variety's agonistic repertoire are either absent or much attenuated in domestic strains. A study by Barnett et al [1979] published in this journal illustrates some of the procedural difficulties associated with comparative studies of this kind. Research in this area suffers from a failure to acknowledge the fact that developmental factors including age, previous social experience, and physical aspects of the rearing environment play a surprisingly important role in the expression of aggression in this species.
Received: 20 March 1980; Accepted: 17 November 1980


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## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

THANKS! 

but this is what i think is stupid:there are few people who have pet rats in iceland,there are wild rats in icelandic nature and there are labrats in iceland.so why can't more people get pet rats?

lizards,snakes,turles,chinchilla and ferrets are also illegal in iceland.


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## sonoma (May 26, 2007)

Well, you learn something new everydayâ€¦I had no idea pet rats were illegal in Iceland! :? 

I looked up Icelandic weather on Google (most of what came up was in degrees Celsiusâ€¦ug, confusing metric system!) From what I gather, your average summer high is only about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, maybe Iâ€™m just a wuss who was born and raised in California, but that seems pretty cold! I have a hard time imagining my pet rats lasting too long outside during one of your winters, though I guess if the wild rats make out okay itâ€™s possible for a fancy rat to survive also. 

Here in California ferrets are illegal. The CA government is worried they will escape into the wild and wreak havoc on both the native wildlife and domestic farm animals like chickens. The thing is there are not already wild ferrets roaming around hereâ€¦I really donâ€™t understand how a few pet rats are going to destroy the native wildlife when you already have a population of wild rats that have yet to do the same? Ah, donâ€™t you just love politics! :roll:


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## Spider (Mar 19, 2007)

To clarify a small point about Rats and Mongoose in Hawaii. I lived on the big Island for a long time and the story is Rats came on ships in the 1800s and when they became prolific they imported the mongoose. Unfortunately no one did their homework, the Rat is nocturnal and the Mongoose a day worker so they both ended up multiplying out of sight.
A bigger problem on Hawaii is the Feral Cats, out by the Humane Society they've taken over a big chunk of jungle, cat crap everywheres its a huge problem, they estimate 10,000 feral cats on Hawaii, so the Rats really aren't a problem anymore.
Spider


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## Lise (Feb 26, 2007)

Rats are also illegal in Alberta, Canada.  It is a "rat free" province. Anyone caught with a rat is fined I believe $5,000 per rat plus it is euthanized.

It is sad, but I do understand why since as sad as it is many people simply let their unwanted pets go outside.


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## crapola (Feb 12, 2007)

nothing wrong with the metric system, you americans need to get with the program and catch up to the rest of the world, lol!!! metric to celcius... double and add 30... eg... 25C is approx 80F. celcius to metric... take 30 and halve... eg 100F is approx 35C.

anyway, my apartment gets very cold at night in winter... probably between 5-10C, and my ratties seem to manage alright. they have a cardboard box to sleep in, and they take fleece squares with them if they're cold, or else they make themselves a bed out of the fleece squares and old towels, then burrow inside. they probably stay warmer than i do!!


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## Holly (Dec 31, 2006)

I wanted to add that if we are talking about PET rats, they would be living in a cage, in a room, in your house. If the temperature inside is fine for you, it will probably be fine for your rat.

Although I have read differently on this thread, in other places, I have read that domestic (Pet) rats that are put in the wild have almost no chance for survival. They will be looking for their food and water dishes, and as was mentioned, their coloring makes them easy to see for a predator.

If the Icelandic government is worried about PET rats escaping and becoming WILD rats, and thus destroying natural wonders, they shouldn't be. I have only very rarely heard of a pet rat escaping. It doesn't usually happen, if the human is careful. Most of the "escapes" turn out to be people who don't want their rats anymore, and just dump them, sadly.

I think this will be a hard one to take on - it is difficult to get legal things changed, especially on a nationwide level.

Just an idea: is there a "black market" for pet rats in Iceland? If so, you might want to look into getting a "secret" rat for a pet.

What are the penalties for owning a pet rat in Iceland?


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## hilli (Jun 6, 2007)

the penaltie is this:the cops come to your house and take the animal and charge you for much amount of money.this penaltie is for owning an illegal animal in iceland.

there is no black markets in iceland i think but to get illegal animals in iceland you have to look for them on the internet.


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## sonoma (May 26, 2007)

Geez, rats are illegal in Alberta too?! 

Really, has anybody ever heard of a colony of feral fancy rats running rampant and causing mass destruction to agriculture or the environment anywhere in the world? I donâ€™t think I have. 

In places where wild rats are already found it just seems so senseless to ban pet rats. And while itâ€™s true some people are just bad pet owners and dump their animals when they get sick of them, thatâ€™s not fair to the majority of responsible pet owners. 

Well, this was an interesting threadâ€¦I even learned about the metric system! Will notâ€¦convertâ€¦toâ€¦metric systemâ€¦Never! LOL! :lol: :lol: :lol:


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