Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses rival conceptions and approaches to rodent control in Cape Town.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses policy contestation in Cape Town over a program to help households in Khayelitsha (a low-income suburb) deal with rodent infestation in a 'poison free' manner. Workers, managed by the local government department of Environmental Health (EH), set cage traps for rats inside people's homes. This project was halted after the South African National Council for Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) objected because the rats were subsequently drowned. We show that rival understandings of the morality of rodent control shaped the policy contestation. EH officials held that drowning rats was preferable to poisoning them because poison was dangerous to children, domestic animals and wildlife. They adopted a broader, and more ecological, notion of welfare that extended beyond the NSPCA's focus on whether the rat was killed in a cruel and legal manner. There was some common ground in that both 'sides' believed that drowning was cruel. For EH, it was the least worst option and officials continued to seek alternative, poison-free and more humane methods of disposing of rats (though these proved impractical). We draw on a social survey in Khayelitsha to show that EH's approach had significant local support. Most agreed that workers should be allowed to trap and drown rats and those who said they were concerned about rat poison killing other animals like cats and owls were more likely to do so. Those who believed that drowning was painful for the rat were less likely to agree with cage-trapping and drowning.