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Perceptions of rodent-associated problems: an experience in urban and rural areas of Yucatan, Mexico

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Abstract

Rodents are a threat to agriculture and homes, and are a public health risk. Local perceptions about rodents and the damage they cause are vital, as a first step, to the design and implementation of rodent control or educational programs. A total of 111 interviews were conducted in two urban neighborhoods and two rural villages in Yucatan, Mexico. More than 90% of the interviewed inhabitants perceived rodents as a problem. The fear of rodents (57%), damage to food and stocks (56%), and damage to clothes (34%), were the most cited problems. In the urban neighborhoods, the use of rodent control methods was more frequent (57%) than in the villages (33%) in this study. In addition, the percentage of damage to domestic appliances was lower in villages (10%) than in neighborhoods (33%). Our preliminary results suggest that rodent pests represent a threat to human health and to human food security in the studied sites.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the families who participated in this research. We are also grateful to Yessica Gurubel, Emir Palomo and Kenia Canché, for their support in the field work, to Lourdes Talavera for her assistance in the Laboratorio de Arbovirología, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, and to Thomas Eldridge for his valuable comments and for the revision into English.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Doctorado en Ciencias Agropecuarias, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY), Km 15.5 carretera Mérida-Xmatkuil, C.P, 97135, Mérida, Mexico

    Jesús Alonso Panti-May

  2. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, UADY, Km 15.5 carretera Mérida-Xmatkuil, C.P, 97135, Mérida, Mexico

    Lorenzo Sodá-Tamayo & Silvia F. Hernández-Betancourt

  3. Centro de Investigaciones Regionales “Dr. Hideyo Noguchi”, UADY, Calle 96, avenida Jacinto Canek y calle 47, Paseo de las fuentes, C.P, 97225, Mérida, Mexico

    Naivy Gamboa-Tec, Rosy Cetina-Franco, Nohemi Cigarroa-Toledo & Carlos Machaín-Williams

  4. Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores CEPAVE (CCT- CONICET- La Plata), Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), Bv 120 e/ 61 y 64, 1900, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    María del Rosario Robles

Authors
  1. Jesús Alonso Panti-May
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  2. Lorenzo Sodá-Tamayo
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  3. Naivy Gamboa-Tec
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  4. Rosy Cetina-Franco
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  5. Nohemi Cigarroa-Toledo
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  6. Carlos Machaín-Williams
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  7. María del Rosario Robles
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  8. Silvia F. Hernández-Betancourt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jesús Alonso Panti-May.

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Funding

The fieldwork was partially funded by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Project ‘Aplicación de metagenómica en la vigilancia y detección de arbovirosis con potencial emergente y re-emergente en comunidades vulnerables de alto riesgo’ (number 2014–247005). J.A. Panti-May was supported by a doctoral grant from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (number 259164).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Panti-May, J.A., Sodá-Tamayo, L., Gamboa-Tec, N. et al. Perceptions of rodent-associated problems: an experience in urban and rural areas of Yucatan, Mexico. Urban Ecosyst 20, 983–988 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-017-0651-8

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