November 09, 2003

By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Dozens of snakes can be released at rubbish dumping grounds to reduce the large number of rats there.

Thousands of rats come out daily to find food as darkness fall at the dumping ground in Berakas, according to members of the public who live near rubbish dumping grounds,

"It is unbelievable but the number of rats could be thousands as they raided the rubbish site at night time," they said. The rat population at dumping grounds suddenly exploded and the hordes of rodent may devastate the land and people through diseases.

Indonesian foreign workers said they normally released dozens of snakes at paddy fields in their homeland, which had proven able to wipe out the rats.

They said rats have been blamed for a great amount of the crop damage in farm areas of Indonesia over the last five years.

"The snake species released include the Reticulated Python and the Indochinese Rat Snake.

"The snakes have been released to reduce the rat population in the paddy fields," they explained. Dozens of snakes may not pose much danger to human beings than thousand of rats that can cause miseries to people inflicting diseases, despair and terror, they said.

They agreed that the use of snakes to wipe out rats at dumping grounds must be fully studied first.

The rats could destroy properties and in the world haunted by threat of famine, rats were estimated to have destroyed approximately a fifth of all food crops planted.

"Around the world rats and their abundant parasites will spread at least twenty kinds of disease, from typhus to trichinosis to deadly Lassa fever. In Asia, Africa, and the Americas people can die of plague such as the dreaded Black Death that destroyed no less than a quarter of the population of medieval Europe," observers said.