Unwanted lab rats find new homes and are adopted thanks to an Argentine organization

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A group of people watched three albino rats jump from small baskets into a large cage on Sunday while other rodents hid in makeshift tunnels or searched for applesauce offered by their keeper through the bars of an interior room in Argentina’s capital.

It’s Ratapalooza, an annual event in Buenos Aires that promotes the adoption of rodents raised in pet stores or used for research in scientific laboratories – once the animals are no longer useful, past their intended purpose, or simply constitute excess stock.

To attract adoptive families, the Ratas team, which means rat in Spanish, organizes events like Ratapalooza. In Argentina, keeping rats or mice as pets is perfectly legal, provided they are not wild.

The whole thing turns into a sort of fair, with stalls selling key chains, mugs, stickers and hair clips shaped like rats and mice. The money collected is used for veterinary and food costs for the rodents, which they raise at home before offering them for adoption.

At one of the stalls, María Gabriela Aponte held Camamberto, one of three rats she adopted, as she sold vegan food, mouse pins and stickers.

All, she said, were raised in laboratories, in what is called a vivarium, where laboratory animals are kept in strictly controlled conditions.

“People don’t really know what a pet is, or they have a very specific perception,” Aponte told the Associated Press. “Rats are very intelligent and kind.”

Dominique Verdier, who represents the Ratas team, says those who want to adopt rodents must have access to a veterinarian specializing in exotic animals, a spacious cage with plenty of accessories for entertainment and dedicate at least one hour a day to quality time with their adoptees.

The Ratas team is a leader in Argentina and Latin America in fostering laboratory rats and mice that, without a foster family, would otherwise be euthanized.

The initiative began in 2016, when Verdier adopted two rats after a friend told him the university where they were used for research no longer needed them.

She established a rodent rescue network with 90 foster homes in Buenos Aires and neighboring cities, housing hundreds of animals from 11 pet stores and laboratories. Over the past 10 years, she has rescued more than 8,000 animals and found homes for around 3,000 people.

His organization has more than 60,000 followers on Instagram.

The proximity of rats and mice – and rodents in general – could raise concerns amid the deadly hantavirus outbreak on the ill-fated Atlantic cruise ship, the MV Hondius, following the ship’s stopover in Argentina earlier this month.

Hantavirus is usually spread by inhaling the feces of contaminated wild rodents, which usually live in Patagonia in southern Argentina.

Verdier, who raises most of the 37 rodents at home, emphasizes that the laboratory rats are perfectly healthy.

“They do not transmit diseases because they have not had contact with the street and are not inoculated with viruses and bacteria,” she said.

The laboratories that have supplied Team Ratas for years only supply animals that have not been infected with any viruses or bacteria.

“Several laboratories prefer to euthanize the animals, while others tell me: ‘Take them away, we don’t want to sacrifice them,’” she adds.

Veterinarian Silvina Diaz, from the University of Buenos Aires, studies the nervous systems of rats and mice in an experimental laboratory.

She argues that rodents find new homes once their laboratory careers are over.

“It’s great that they’re doing this work of placing animals in families that can give them a good life,” said Diaz, who serves as a liaison between the veterinary technicians and the Ratas team.

Verdier, who insists she will continue to find new homes for the furry little creatures, says she is used to the criticism she receives on social media.

“If people see a dog shelter, they might admire it, but when I mention Ratapalooza, they’ll say, ‘What you’re doing is stupid,'” she said. “And I say I’ve been doing this for 10 years and it’s still growing.”

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