Jakarta's Rat Eradication Movement: public offered cash reward for live rats

With Jakarta's rats getting ever bigger and more brazen, the deputy governor decided to offer $1.50 per live rodent. But history shows such schemes can have unintended consequences and offering the public a cash bounty could backfire

Samin climbed down into the darkness of the sewer, homemade catapult in hand. He wasn't using stones this time, concerned they might kill his prey. Instead he formed small balls from damp mud, just enough to stun the rats and get them into a rusty wire cage. The plan was to smoke them out. He threw a fistful of lit rags down the tunnel and waited.

That night, despite an evening thunder storm, the square outside Cakung district administrative office in East Jakarta was packed with street cleaners carrying an assortment of old birdcages and traps made from wire or discarded water dispenser bottles. A good haul for one afternoon - 650 live rats - many of them more than two feet long.