Article explores how Chicago's rats adapted when restaurants shut down during the pandemic.
When Chicago's restaurants shut down during the pandemic, the city's rats got one last feast — then started to starve. As humans retreated indoors, the urban habitat that rats had spent millennia adapting to suddenly changed, and they had to adapt again. Wildlife ecologist Maureen Murray of Lincoln Park Zoo calls it "a natural experiment." What happens to city wildlife when we disappear? This Atlantic piece explores the answer, one rat trap at a time.
