University of Greenwich - Pied piper of Chittagong

An explosion in Bangladesh's rat population will be tackled by a scientist based at the University of Greenwich. Steve Belmain, an applied ecologist in the university's Natural Resources Institute, has been working on rodent research projects in the region since 2002. When the latest "rat floods" began, bringing disease and economic chaos to the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in southeastern Bangladesh, the United Nations Development Programme asked Dr Belmain to lead a team of 14 experts to collect information on the phenomenon and provide recommendations for what should be done. Rat floods occur every 50 years when bamboo plants throughout the region flower en masse, increasing the rodents' food supply.