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Scratching at your door, frollicking in the streets and scurrying down alleys; rats have made Philadelphia their home whether we like it or not. Last week, the City Council declared their presence a problem and vowed to take care of it.
Stepping in to save the day is an animal rights organization with a suggestion for Mayor Cherelle Parker: Put the rodents on birth control.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent a letter to Parker on Wednesday, urging the city to consider rat contraception instead of relying on traditional extermination methods like traps or poison. The organization also plans to send Parker a “Rats Have Rights” mug.
PETA argues that poisoning rats causes painful deaths, threatens other wildlife and fails to address the conditions attracting rodents in the first place.
“Poisoning and trapping rats is a cruel and ineffective approach that inflicts painful deaths on animals who are just trying to eke out an existence,” PETA President Tracy Reiman said in a statement.
An accompanying release from PETA says that rats are “empathetic, family-oriented individuals who will put themselves in harm’s way to save someone else.”
PETA’s proposal comes less than a week after Philadelphia City Council unanimously approved a resolution Oct. 8 urging city agencies to treat growing rat infestations in lower Northeast Philadelphia as an urgent public health and quality-of-life emergency.
Introduced by Councilmember Anthony Phillips, the resolution calls for the departments of Licenses and Inspections, Public Health and Sanitation to coordinate inspections, treatments and enforcement efforts.
Residents in Oxford Circle, Castor Gardens and surrounding neighborhoods have reported rats entering homes, damaging property and chewing through vehicle wiring. The Council resolution details improperly stored trash, vacant properties and abandoned vehicles as contributing factors.
Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health already operates a Vector Control program that investigates rat complaints and provides treatment when necessary.
PETA wants contraception added to that work alongside improved sanitation and secure trash storage.
Rat birth control comes in both solid and liquid form and is meant to be continuously ingested by the rats.
“With fewer babies being born, populations can decline over time without subjecting rats to painful poisons and traps,” said PETA spokesperson Alex Payne to Billy Penn.
Payne said the program’s cost would depend on the scale of it’s deployment but offers “an investment in prevention, addressing reproduction instead of perpetuating an endless cycle of killing rats as new ones continue to be born.”
A single female rat can produce seven litters annually, with each litter containing six to 12 baby rats. Rats can start reproducing as early as 5 weeks of age
PETA is no stranger to attention-grabbing demonstrations in Philadelphia. In June 2025, two supporters stormed the field during a FIFA Club World Cup match at Lincoln Financial Field to protest the killing of stray dogs in Morocco. That September, the organization sent a boxer-costumed activist to the Rocky Steps to distribute vegan cheese, and in December, it announced a giant inflatable snow globe demonstration near City Hall depicting sheep being beaten. More recently, in February 2026, PETA brought its “Hell on Wheels” truck, designed to resemble a livestock transport vehicle and broadcast recordings of squealing pigs, to the Liberty Bell to promote veganism.
Whether you view the rats as a problem or not, exterminators say we have a lot of them.
A recent Terminix ranking placed Philadelphia third nationally for rodent activity, behind New York City and Los Angeles. The ranking was based on 2025 rodent control request data from more than 300 Terminix branches nationwide.
However, the rankings are not a literal count of rats. Another pest control company, Orkin, ranked Philadelphia ninth in its 2026 list, a spot lower than Philadelphia’s 2025 ranking.
PETA’s proposed alternative involves contraceptive pellets or liquid bait designed to reduce rat reproduction over time.
Baltimore, Chicago and Washington have experimented with rat contraception to battle their own rat problems. Washington launched a roughly $130,000 pilot program this year combining contraceptives with improved trash disposal, although the long-term effectiveness of such programs remains under evaluation.
