D.C. is using birth control medication to prevent rodent pregnancies in the city’s latest attempt to curb the rising rat population.
Ayanna Bennett, the director of D.C. Health, said the hormonal medication is part of a three-pronged approach that also involves two forms of poison, bait and tracking powder, to lower the number of rats in the city.
“The fertility control is only going to be for those who survive the other two methods,” Bennett told WTOP’s Kate Ryan.
This week, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced an upcoming pilot program to combat rats with “an innovative fertility suppressant,” among other methods.
The birth control strategy has been effective in other places, Bennett said, including in major cities, such as New York.
But a local wildlife expert said its ability to stomp out populations is unclear.
“Some people have success, and other people don’t have success,” said Dr. Sarah Sirica, the clinic director at City Wildlife, a rescue and rehabilitation facility in D.C. “It’s never going to be as effective as all of the preventative measures that we could use to stop the rats.”
Those preventative measures include cutting off access to food, water and shelter. That’s done by keeping trash cans secure and alleyways clear, while blocking off entry points into buildings.
“If they don’t have access to the food, they literally breed less,” said Sirica, who’s part of a coalition that deals with rat management in D.C. “It’s not exciting to repair trash cans. That’s not an exciting city initiative, but that is something that would make a difference.”
D.C. Council member Christina Henderson recently introduced the Public Trash and Recycling Container Budgeting Act of 2026, which would replace open-top public trash cans with ones that are harder for rodents to access.
Bennett agreed that it’s necessary to secure trash to control populations.
“Our main concern is garbage that’s out of the cans,” Bennett said. “People who put bags next to cans, people who overflow the can in a way that the lid doesn’t actually prevent rats from getting to the food.”
She said the city will assess whether the birth control initiative is working as intended in three weeks.
“I just worry that we might get the public too invested in a solution that we’re not sure actually works and something that we’re not sure if we should be putting it out in the environment,” Sirica said.
Outside of its efficacy, Sirica has questions about the use of hormonal medication.
“It’s something that changes hormones in rodents. And do we want that to be out in the world? I’m not quite sure,” Sirica said.
She also said general strategies to target rats have adverse effects on other animals. Products called “anticoagulant rodenticides” work as a blood thinner and which can cause an animal to die from excessive bleeding.
If another animal comes along and eats the poisoned rat, it can have negative effects.
“We have many patients every year that we treat for these conditions,” Sirica said. “Some of them we are able to save, but unfortunately, many of them pass away from this.”
WTOP’s Kate Ryan contributed to this report.
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