During the age of the dinosaurs (Mesozoic Era), mammals came out only at night. That was the safest time. The dinosaurs were too much for the warm-blooded furry kind. Those beasts ruled the world for 110 million years. Then a large asteroid or comet about the size of downtown Seattle hit what is now the Gulf of Mexico, and that was end of that monstrous way of life. When the dust cleared, the small creatures eventually came out of the night. Some of these furry rodent-sized animals evolved into monkeys, and then into apes. Some of these apes became humans. And what have we done over the past 100,000 years of our dominance? We have pushed a number of rhinos out of existence and rats into the night. That is the rats’ domain. It’s also that of raccoons. We are the new monsters. It is the business of the rat’s mode of life to be in perpetual fear of us. We will kill them at any opportunity.
But what is happening in Seattle at the end of the second decade of the 21st century (an epoch called the Anthropocene because of capitalism)? We are seeing rats that have become totally fearless. They come out during the day and go about as if they are squirrels or birds. They are also becoming huge, which is another indication of growing fearlessness. The idea was once to keep small and out of our sight. But just look at this big Leschi rat eating a tomato, and you will see things are really changing.
