Living in Puerto Rico many moons ago, there were plenty of the nasty little critters. They were more like squirrels than what you think of as wharf rats. They primarily at fruit and loved coconuts! They would climb the trees and bore into the top of a coconut. Sometimes gorging themselves to the point that they were stuck. You would see coconuts going back and forth as the rat tried to back out, but usually what happened the coconut would break free and a ride to the ground was the result, which usually killed or freed the rat. Once on the ground cats out of nowhere would appear and the chase on.

They would get on the roof of houses and come down the vent and even ending up in the toilet. We had a close friend that experienced that first hand when she arose in the middle of the night to use the restroom. A soon as she sat down she heard a bunch of splashing. Jumping up (like a Saturn V booster rocket) and turning on the light found the intruder taking a lap around the bowl. My bet she still stands up to pee with the lights on 37 years later.

We had plenty more wild encounters with them critters, but suffice it to say there were definitely Coconut Rats in Augadilla, PR. The trees were painted by the base public works, but I am not sure that their efforts were successful. However, a wide strip of tin around the tree about halfway up seem to work well. If you google coconut rats there are some neat pictures of how they do their thing. Just remember squirrels are nothing more than cute rats.

Oh yeah I have been to a blues venue in DC (Georgetown) and seen some RATS, and they do not eat coconuts.