Rats chasing mice in Magic Kingdom

[Pat329]

Everyone gets so upset seeing a mouse or rat in WDW and yet we all pay thousands of dollars each year to visit the most famous mouse of all. Just think of them as one of Mickey's relatives! I'm only upset that they got in free and I had to pay!!!

 

[isixpacku]

As long as they arent in my room, in a restaurant, or on the ride with me, I can understand why there will be some around.

 

[Luv2CtheMouse]

I cannot believe all of the people freaking out about this and acting like Disney is now the slums. It is Florida. I would much rather see a mouse or rat than a snake or gator.

 

[LilyWDW]

It's Florida and these animals live there too. Which also means that sometimes they invade your space. It's a fact of life and there is no reason to worry too much about it.

 

[Maleficent53]

I work at an airport. I always get a chuckle over the people who will come up to me and whisper - "I saw a mouse over there" thinking they are telling me something I didn't know about. I tell them "If you saw one, 20 of its friends are just out of sight!" When people leave so much food on the floor then they are impossible to get rid of.

Thankfully I haven't seen any of their larger cousins yet.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Okay, I understand the whole circle of life thing and I like nature (even snakes), but I just don't get how rats are beneficial . Disney is totally capable of cleaning up their trash without the help of rats.

You could argue big cities are capable of cleaning up their trash too but it's not something anyone would really understand until the rats went missing. A healthy rat population can rid of city of millions of pounds of garbage over the course of a year. So think if the rats suddenly disappeared. You'd pay a ton more in taxes to increase trash services through the city due to the increase in what they were actually able to pick up. That's not counting edible litter, which let's face it, a typical city will never hire sweepers to walk around sidewalks and pick stuff up, so rats would take care of that. If they weren't there, the foodstuff would rot, increase in the incest population that would feed on that and not having a rodent population to help on that front either. Add all that extra removable garbage to current landfills and they'd be completely overwhelmed.

So while Disney is very diligent with garbage removal, believe me, if you saw it without the rodent population, you'd be begging for them back.

 

[skater]

You could argue big cities are capable of cleaning up their trash too but it's not something anyone would really understand until the rats went missing. A healthy rat population can rid of city of millions of pounds of garbage over the course of a year. So think if the rats suddenly disappeared. You'd pay a ton more in taxes to increase trash services through the city due to the increase in what they were actually able to pick up. That's not counting edible litter, which let's face it, a typical city will never hire sweepers to walk around sidewalks and pick stuff up, so rats would take care of that. If they weren't there, the foodstuff would rot, increase in the incest population that would feed on that and not having a rodent population to help on that front either. Add all that extra removable garbage to current landfills and they'd be completely overwhelmed.

So while Disney is very diligent with garbage removal, believe me, if you saw it without the rodent population, you'd be begging for them back.

I just don't believe that WDW would be full of garbage without the rats .

On a side note, last year or the year before (my memory is getting sadly tired), we saw a rat outside our room at POR. While I found it yucky, it certainly wasn't totally shocking. I did feel a little weird about walking past the bushes to my van at night though .

 

[Magpie]

You could argue big cities are capable of cleaning up their trash too but it's not something anyone would really understand until the rats went missing. A healthy rat population can rid of city of millions of pounds of garbage over the course of a year. So think if the rats suddenly disappeared. You'd pay a ton more in taxes to increase trash services through the city due to the increase in what they were actually able to pick up. That's not counting edible litter, which let's face it, a typical city will never hire sweepers to walk around sidewalks and pick stuff up, so rats would take care of that. If they weren't there, the foodstuff would rot, increase in the incest population that would feed on that and not having a rodent population to help on that front either. Add all that extra removable garbage to current landfills and they'd be completely overwhelmed.

So while Disney is very diligent with garbage removal, believe me, if you saw it without the rodent population, you'd be begging for them back.

 

[Marnm02]

I never saw any rodents at WDW, but I have seen plenty of lizards and a few snakes. There were tons of cats in the CP housing area, but I've never seen any in the parks.

During my CP, I had a friend visiting from home, and we got a room at ASsp while checking out the parks. One night I was using the bathroom, went to grab some TP, and the hugest cockroach ever fell from within the roll onto my foot. I freaked out and ran out of that bathroom partially clothed. My friend and I proceeded to scream for about 10 minutes before calling the front desk...but they didn't do anything . I'm not sure if it was because they knew it was a room booked with a CM discount, or if they generally don't really care about roaches living in the TP... We never did find the roach again, but I remember getting pretty nervous every time I had to go in the bathroom during that say. Now that I'm married I make sure to send my hubby in to do a TP check any time we go to WDW

 

[cupcakefairy2u]

If they are outside and not near my food I am ok with that . BUT the time we came back to our room at CSR and found a MOUSE NOT wearing red shorts we called and told them to move us right away . It is just icky to think about them being in the room at night with you while you sleep

 

[LisaCat]

Hey! Disney is rodent friendly.

For pete's sake folks, it's Florida. There are all sorts of bugs and animals crawling around.

With all of the trees around the parks, I'd be surprised if rodents didn't get into MK.

That was my thought on it.

Besides, I actually really like rats and mice. Now those flying roaches....*shudder*

Yup to all of this. There are snakes I'm not too thrilled about either, but it's an open area built on a swamp. They are not in a bubble. If they were squirrels, people would think they were cute, but because their tails have no fur......

 

[LockShockBarrel]

omg.... INSECT*** I meant INSECT!!!!!!

 

[LisaCat]

As a fervent rat lover, and former owner of domesticated rats, I can firmly say that as long as you're not feeding them (and they're not being fed by people on a regular basis), they will likely be avoiding you as much as you want to avoid them. Rats keep themselves pretty clean, and while they can leave mess behind, as any animal would, I'm pretty sure Disney keeps their kitchens, and really all areas of the park, very clean, so there's nothing to worry about.

Now would I try to catch or pick up a wild rat? Heck, no. Not anywhere. It's a wild animal. But it doesn't worry me any more than a feral cat would, or a squirrel. The only reason I wouldn't be tossing it popcorn is for its own safety.

Rats get a really bad rap. They are wonderful, intelligent, loving animals.


Things That Make Me Happy 2 by opaleyes, on Flickr

They really are. My sister came home one year with her class rat. I thought my mom was gonna have a stroke. (obviously, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, they schools didn't need permission for this sort of thing). That rat was AWESOME.

 

[LisaCat]

omg.... INSECT*** I meant INSECT!!!!!!

BWA HA HA!!!! I read it in context and didn't even catch the typo. I had to go back and s*l*o*w*l*y read your post to catch it. * snicker*

 

[Magpie]

omg.... INSECT*** I meant INSECT!!!!!!

I appreciated the laugh.

And also the notion that our urban rodents are keeping us morally pure, as well as disposing of our garbage.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

What can I say? I'm something of a rat advocate. I had 4 of them as pets and they were amazing. How else could I manage to make such a typo unless I was passionately typing out my argument and was too distracted by rat awesomeness to notice! And I do have to say, my garbage disposal argument is based on fact. I used to have a book that was all about the rat's place in human culture and I got about 1/4 through it and lost it at an airport! I must have set it down when I was grabbing my boarding pass and forgot to pick it back up. I miss my pet rats terribly, nothing was better than watching them eat with their little hands. I had one that would hold a grape in his paws and nibble very pensively at it, and another that loved watermelon and would push his little face right into a piece of it like it was the greatest thing in the world. I'm pretty sure none of them advocated incest though.

 

[scjo68]

At Kings Dominion we have several groups of wild skunks that live there. They stay mostly in the little islands of bushes, but start moving around at dusk. They must be so used to people that they don't seerm to get scared. I have never heard that they have caused any problems. It is startling to have one cross the path in front you.

 

[Sparkie]

I encountered some of Mickey's friends at Fort Wilderness. I was on the sidewalk at the bus stop headed back to the parking lot to my car, when 2 of the BIGGEST RATS I have ever seen poked their heads out of the shrubs. One of them ducked back in but the other made a run for it, across the walk and just inches from my toes.

Now I live on 10 acres in Alabama and yes, we have mice. But I have never encountered at RAT the size of a small DOG! I was petrified, literelly. I stood frozen in fear and all I could do was scream. It was a girl moment. Really funny now and made a Disney memory.

 

[reginaastralis]

Oh bugs and rats in Disney, what a great idea to wake up to in the morning, lol.

I used to work in a mall that was built on an old cow pasture that had an orange grove right next to it (the orange grove was torn down for parking) and the other side of the mall was wetlands. There were mice/rats (I honestly never got close enough to check out) everywhere. Where would they have gone? If you take away their home, they are going to have to go somewhere.

I won't say where I worked, but it was a restaurant that was doing the best thing they could to keep track of the rodent problems. It wasn't just the one place, it was the whole mall. Imagine the scream that came out of the woman's mouth when my coworker said "Oh, you mean Charley? We can't catch him" as the little furry fellow ran across the restaurant during open hours.

As a Floridian, I try not to freak out over spiders (they eat flying things) and snakes (they eat scurrying things) ... though I'll never love a palmetto bug. My joke is that Florida girls wear flip flops so we can kill a palmetto bug if it runs in front of us, you can slip that bad boy off and kill a bug in a heart beat. Florida is so hot that without the invent of air conditioning, the only things that would really survive here on it's own seem to be roaches and alligators.

 

[Art 1]

I've seen rats at Times Square. No big deal.