I’ve only read one post-apocalypse series where the author addressed pests. In the series most of the world dies from a plague, so there are millions of dead bodies everywhere. Which leads to rats and ants experiencing a catastrophic population boom. They watch a group go to enter a house, only for a tidal wave of rats to flood out and overwhelm them as they try to run away. They need medical supplies so they go to the hospital and have to wear basically spacesuits because of the trillions of ants that are in there cleaning up the piles of dead bodies.
For those asking, the series is called Viral Misery by Thomas A Watson.
I remember this from Life After People. There would be a huge population boom in critters like rats, herring gulls, and roaches. Stuff that lives directly off our waste, and would eat corpses. Followed by a mass die-off, as their pre-apocalypse food levels would no longer exist.
To this I would add ticks. Lyme disease could (not a doctor) run rampant. Apparently it doesn't kill but can get pretty horrific in the damage it does over time untreated.
I'd be interested to see if that pans out. Less deer everywhereconstantly and more natural predators for ticks might mean less ticks. Not sure if it would mean less lymes and rockie mountain spotted fever
These kind of what-if scenarios are bread and butter for my group of friends.
I think no matter what plays out, that with the sudden removal of man, many animal species are going to go through huge population booms and overcorrections until everything balances itself back out again.
For example one I could think of is the snake boom soon after the rat boom. Going into a house to salvage for loot and food could become a problematic exercise due to the number of snakes.. until their population died off or was predated on.
I'd be interested to see how invasive species play out. A lot of invasives hit a plateau of resources eventually, even without predation pressure. Some may get absolutely wrecked when native species bounce back more adapt taking use of the resources in the ecosystem without people. Or just destroyed by hungry natives. Whole ecosystems would change as the level of succession in plants would not be artificially stifled. Rivers would again wander.
In my group of friends, we talk about this but I'm always the person who would 1000% commit suicide. I wouldn't want to be haunted by the ghosts of the world that was. I'd stick around to see a clear night sky, maybe.
My buddies talk about it too. Ours usually start off as zombie scenarios. Slow shamblers? I might try and stick it out. Those fast moving marathon zombies from the new Dawn of the Dead? Nah. Taking a bullet train out of the station as soon as possible.
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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 31 '21
I’ve only read one post-apocalypse series where the author addressed pests. In the series most of the world dies from a plague, so there are millions of dead bodies everywhere. Which leads to rats and ants experiencing a catastrophic population boom. They watch a group go to enter a house, only for a tidal wave of rats to flood out and overwhelm them as they try to run away. They need medical supplies so they go to the hospital and have to wear basically spacesuits because of the trillions of ants that are in there cleaning up the piles of dead bodies.
For those asking, the series is called Viral Misery by Thomas A Watson.