纽约，这座从18世纪就开始与老鼠鏖战的城市，如今竟然把鼠患变成了旅游资源。

今年四月，前非营利组织从业者苏珊娜·莱斯曼（Suzanne Reisman）打造了一条以“纽约的垃圾与老鼠”为主题的徒步观光线路。每人收费40美元，带领游客在曼哈顿下城游览两个小时，沿途穿插讲解纽约的城市历史和与老鼠有关的趣闻轶事。

New York City has always been at war with rats, from when they jumped from ship to shore in the 18th century to the city's anti-rat campaign today.

Thankfully, there has emerged a lone hero who braves Gotham's vermin plague to educate the masses and reduce the fright factor: Suzanne Reisman, leader of the Garbage & Rats in New York walking tour.



苏珊娜·莱斯曼

“人们对此很感兴趣，我最近两场都卖完了，候补名单都满了。有次下雨，我不确定大家会不会冒雨在周日晚上前来，结果他们真来了！”莱斯曼自豪地说。

在刚过去的“Jane's Walk”活动（全球性社区徒步活动）上，她的两个导览团迅速售罄，就连候补名单也被抢空。

"There has been a lot of interest," Reisman told The Post of the popular, frankly skin-crawling experience, which costs $40 per person.

"I sold out two tours and filled the waitlists during Jane's Walk," she said of a recent excursion coinciding with the annual festival of community-led walking conversations. "I wasn't sure that people would show up for a Sunday night tour in the rain, but they did!"



正在讲解的莱斯曼

“老鼠主题”特色导览

整场导览持续两个小时，内容从老鼠的起源一路讲到当代城市治理。莱斯曼告诉大家，其实所谓“挪威大鼠”根本不是挪威来的，而是18世纪随着黑森佣兵的船只从亚洲漂洋过海来到纽约的。抵达后的第一站，就是城市街头堆积如山的垃圾。

“它们一下船一看：地上全是腐肉、粪便和残羹冷炙，简直跟中了大奖似的，”她笑着说，“这地方简直就是为老鼠量身定做的。它们简直乐坏了，然后，就像所有纽约客一样，它们成了纽约客，一群成功的移民。”

"The rats get off the ship. They take a look around and think, 'Jackpot — we've made it'," Reisman told rapt tour-takers and other revulsed guests. "They are just beyond super happy, and they are as much of a New Yorker, a successful immigrant New Yorker, as any other group."



“挪威大鼠”早在18世纪就已经来到纽约

这趟导览不止是城市生态课，还夹杂着不少令人“生理不适”的知识点。比如：老鼠一天能交配多达20次，难怪繁殖速度惊人；19世纪的水街上曾有一个地下赌场，有时会举办狗与老鼠的搏斗比赛，供人下注赌博。

Guests learn many scary factoids, like how rats have sex up to 20 times a day — hence why the scourge is so rampant — and visit the former site of Sportsmen's Hall on Water Street, where spectators would bet on ferocious fights of terrier versus rat hosted by Irish gang leader Kit Burns in the 1800s.

导览的高潮出现在曼哈顿下城的德鲁里广场（DeLury Square）。这里的老鼠多到离谱，且几乎不怕人，以至于你隔一会儿就能见到一只灰黑的小东西在地上嗖嗖地窜过去，让人想到《料理鼠王》中的名场面。



德鲁里广场的老鼠

为什么有人愿意花钱“看老鼠”？

来自波士顿、这次带着两个青少年儿子回纽约探亲的游客Caroline Murray给出了答案：“我想体验一下我记忆中的那个‘原汁原味的纽约’。”

Murray在纽约出生长大，后来移居了波士顿，这次她带着十几岁的儿子回来参观，不想像普通游客一样去时代广场打个卡什么的。那么，还有什么能比四处乱窜的老鼠更有纽约味呢？

Brave rat tourist Caroline Murray, a current Boston resident and New York native who was back visiting with her teenage sons, told The Post that she wanted to see something that felt "more like the gritty New York" that she loves and not the tourist trap of Times Square.

她说，“我们看到了活老鼠，还看到了被压扁的鼠饼，甚至还有个男的在排水沟里呕吐。总的来说，这是一次非常非常纽约的经历，我儿子在马萨诸塞州的郊区可不常见到这种风景。”



莱斯曼认为，民众对老鼠的兴趣，可能很大程度上来自于纽约近年来推行的灭鼠运动。2023年，纽约市专门任命了一位“灭鼠专员”，并投资数百万美元专门用于灭鼠。同时还开了一个“老鼠学院”，莱斯曼就是从这里毕业的。

“纽约现在做了更多事情来吸引人们参与其间，”莱斯曼说，“所以我觉得大家对这种话题也更愿意聊了，整体氛围更开放了，市民的关注度也比以前高了。”

除了莱斯曼，另一位因老鼠走红的是绰号“鼠老爹”的网红肯尼·博尔维克（Kenny Bollwerk）。他将自己捕鼠的过程拍摄成视频发到TikTok上，目前已经有100多集了，在他的视频里你能欣赏到各种老鼠，活跃在各种地方。



博尔维克在地铁拍到的老鼠

博尔维克的导览路线中，最值得一提的是纽约中央公园内著名的沃尔曼溜冰场（Wollman Rink）。那里的老鼠在垃圾中大快朵颐，背后则是亿万富翁云集的摩天大楼。

Reisman's not the only tour guide noticing an uptick in interest. Fellow rodent enthusiast Kenny Bollwerk — the self-proclaimed "Rat Daddy", who films his rodent-spotting exploits for his TikTok series "Rat Tok", was forced to add more stops to the tour — most notably an "area next to Wollman Rink (Central Park) where the trash is thrown away, offering sweeping views of the skyline on Billionaires' Row with rats feasting on the buffet below."



沃尔曼溜冰场 图源：VCG

纽约的鼠患有多严重？

莱斯曼介绍说，以前，纽约用的垃圾桶都是金属制的，但在1968年纽约环卫工人大罢工后，纽约就不再使用金属垃圾桶，改成了塑料袋。当时的市政府认为，塑料袋一不像金属桶那么重，减轻了环卫工人的负担；二能更好地圈住垃圾的气味，能更少地吸引老鼠。

但相比金属垃圾桶，塑料袋显然更容易撕开或咬开，老鼠吃自助吃得更爽了，繁殖也更快了。

After the 1968 sanitation workers' strike, New York didn't return to using containers for garbage, which spawned countless opportunities for rats to multiply, Reisman explained.



堆积如山的黑色垃圾袋充斥着纽约的人行道，供老鼠享用。 图源：VCG

事实上，在相当长一段时间里，纽约的鼠患都十分严重，美国《纽约客》杂志1944年就刊文描写“纽约市和老鼠之间永恒的斗争”。

大多数专家都认为，在纽约，和老鼠的战争根本赢不了。用2022年一项研究的话来说：“老鼠问题并没有一劳永逸的解决方案。我们只能多管齐下——用上高科技垃圾桶（好吧，其实就是带盖子的）、投喂避孕药、清理狗屎……通过这些手段来控制数量。但即便如此，老鼠依然会存在。”

Most experts believe that the war on rats is fundamentally unwinnable. "We've been trying to kill these guys since the Middle Ages."

To quote a 2022 study, "there is no overarching solution" to the rat problem. "We have to layer on all of our efforts – hi-tech trash cans (OK, just ones with lids), birth control, cleaning up dog poop – to manage the population, and even then we'll still have rats."

在莱斯曼看来，最关键的防鼠法则是：“切断老鼠的食物来源。”

“纽约的问题是，我们把垃圾袋直接扔在街上，老鼠很容易就咬破吃到里面的东西。如果我们真的能控制好垃圾外露问题，鼠患就会大大减少。”

"We really have to address the fact that our city has a lot of litter," she said. "We throw trash bags on the street that are easy for rats to rip into. But if we really cut down on the access, that would help significantly."

编辑：左卓

见习编辑：裴禧盈

来源：纽约邮报 英国那些事儿 卫报 环球网 极目新闻