Manhattan Honors Little Luna, Champion Rat Killer, Receives ‘Empathy’ Package From PETA

Killing rats in New York City is usually a thankless task, but rat-killer extraordinaire Luna  just got a good citizen award. Council Member Chi Ossé, presented Luna with a City Council Citation for “being New York's strongest soldier in our war against the rats.”

The little wire-haired pup has terrorized the city’s rat population, “with over 200 confirmed kills, including over 60 this year alone,” Ossé wrote on X. “Luna is holding the front line and making us proud.”

Mayor Eric Adams has made killing rats a priority for his administration. “New Yorkers may not know this about me — but I hate rats,” the mayor said while announcing the Inaugural National Urban Rat Summit, to be held in the city in September. Last year Adams Adams appointed Kathleen Corradi to the newly created post of citywide director of rodent mitigation, more popularly known as Rat Czar.

Not everyone is so adamantly anti-rat. “Instead of trash-talking rats, Mayor Adams should focus on clearing New York’s streets of the massive heaps of garbage attracting them in the first place,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Adams to stop villainizing rats for a problem created by humans and to address this issue with respect and understanding.”

Following Adams’s announcement, PETA rushed one of its Empathy Kits – “a step-by-step guide to cultivating compassion” – to the mayor’s office, along with a “Rats Have Rights” coffee mug.

PETA

To be fair to the mayor, the department of sanitation is actually trying to clear its streets of garbage, specifically to control the rat problem. And last month the city announced a pilot program in two neighborhoods to sterilize rats using pellets. These measures, along with outstanding citizens like Luna the dog, should put a bite in the three million or so rats that roam the streets.

Photo credit: Chi Ossé via X