Taking Care of Rats and Pigeons: 1972-3

My last post reminded me of my undergraduate days and when I had the responsibility for the rat and pigeon lab at the University of Baltimore. The lab is no more, and that space is now an administrator's office, seems fair :-)

Our lab housed about a dozen albino rats and half as many pigeons. I was (and still am) allergic to rat dander, so I had to wear a filter mask. My job was to feed and water the animals and to clean up after them. For that, I earned minimum wage which was $2.40 an hour.

A couple of incidents still come to mind. One was the only day I was ever bitten by a rat. That happened on the day the experimental psychology class first came to meet their rats. In retrospect, it seems obvious what happened. The rats were all nervous, probably in response to the students' own anxiety, and one took it out on me. He got my left index finger. Fortunately, his upper teeth hit my fingernail, so only his lower teeth broke the skin. For a few seconds, I had a half pound white rat attached to my finger while blood streamed everywhere. After he let go and fell, I caught him and put him back in his cage. Then, I got some first aid.

The other incident involved a pigeon. I learned how to catch a loose pigeon. The lab was windowless by design, so I could control the amount of light in the room. So, one of the pigeons got loose one day and was flying around the room. Fortunately, I remembered my mentor's advice, "Wait for him to land, then turn out the lights, sneak up on him and grab him." So, I watched and when the pigeon landed on the lens of the overhead projector, I turned off the lights and slowly approached. Slowly, I placed my hands around where I imagined him to be and closed the distance between dexter and sinister (my right and left hands for the Latin-impaired) and grabbed him. Back to the light switch, one pigeon nabbed.

Pigeons, possessing eyes with cones only, are effectively night blind. So, once the lights go out they are very unlikely to move. Ahh, the good? old days.