A Lesson for Politics From Hawai’i
P. Schultz
In 1883,
the plantation owners in Hawai’i introduced the mongoose to their island in
order to control the rat population that was wreaking havoc with their sugar
cane. As a result, while the rat population was unaffected – rats are nocturnal
while mongoose are diurnal – the mongoose population grew exponentially,
feeding off the eggs of birds, almost all of whom were ground nesters, until
the that population was all but extinct. From the article linked below:
“Like so many
invasive species that now run amuck on islands around the world, mongooses were
intentionally introduced to Hawaii. Sugar cane farmers took their cue from
Jamaican plantation owners who imported mongooses to control rat populations.
In 1883 the mongooses were let loose in the fields, an approach that proved to
be colossally uninformed. As it turns out, rats are nocturnal and mongooses are
diurnal. The exotic predators never came in contact with their rodent prey, and
native bird populations began crashing instead.”
What’s the lesson
here? Well, if your dealing with rats and you think that an invasion by an
alien presence will solve the “problem,” think again. Think this isn’t relevant
for politics? Well, then read a book entitled Operation Flytrap, which deals with a successful gang intervention
program in Los Angeles. That is, it was successful in the limited sense of
moderating gang behavior in the area where it was implemented. But when its
results were looked at more closely, this “success” came at a rather high
price, i.e., it devastated the families of the gang members arrested and
imprisoned, thereby reinforcing the very conditions that led to the creation of
the gangs in the first place!
Or, if you wish, just
look toward and into the Middle East, and you will see the same phenomenon
occurring. It is an interesting situation.
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