Santiago - A Chilean ecological group has sounded an alarm about two-feet-long "mutant" rats that have attacked barnyard animals in a suburb of Santiago. The private Orbe news agency said Mr Mauricio Barraza, president of the Ecological Council of Maipu, believed the rodents had grown so large because they fed on the droppings of hormone-fattened poultry.
According to Mr Barraza, the giant rats burrow in the banks of the Mapocho, the filthy river that crosses Santiago, and have shocked farmers in Maipu, a Santiago suburb, with their vicious attacks on chickens and small goats.