Operation Cat Drop is the name given to the delivery of cats, equipment and supplies by the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force to remote regions of the then-British colony of Sarawak (today part of Malaysia), on the island of Borneo in 1960.[1] The cats were flown out of Singapore and delivered in crates dropped by parachutes as part of a broader program of supplying cats to combat an infestation of rats.[1] The operation was reported as a "success" at the time.[2][3] Newspaper reports published soon after the Operation reference only 23 cats being used. Some unreliable later accounts of the event claim as many as 14,000 cats were used, but this figure is apocryphal.[4][5] An additional source references a "recruitment" drive for 30 cats a few days prior to Operation Cat Drop.[6]
Background
editInsecticides including dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) were widely used during the 1950s, including in Borneo, as a malaria control measure. The insecticides were intended to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes before they could pass the disease onto humans.[4]
At the time of the cat drop in 1960, newspaper reports indicate that a district in Sarawak was suffering from an infestation of rats, which were destroying crops.[1][2][3] It has been suggested that this rat infestation was the result of many of the existing local cats dying due to the use of DDT or other insecticides, and the rat population subsequently increasing as it faced reduced predation from cats. While it has been claimed that these cat deaths resulted from biomagnification of DDT - the cats eating other creatures such as lizards or cockroaches that had in turn been exposed to DDT - this has not been confirmed. Deaths of cats may have been caused by direct exposure to DDT sprayed in dwellings, as opposed to biomagnification. [4]
There have been reports of cat deaths due to DDT exposure in Thailand, Bolivia and Mexico, with a subsequent increase in rodent infestations reported in Thailand and Bolivia. In several of these cases, it has been proposed that the cat fatalities were the result of cats licking their fur after brushing up against a wall or other surface sprayed with DDT.[4]
The native domestic cat population being reduced as an unintended consequence of the World Health Organization (WHO) spraying DDT for malaria control has been referenced as an example of the problems and solutions that may arise from human interventions in the environment, or of how unintended consequences lead to other events more generally, and particularly how frameworks such as systems thinking[7] or "whole systems thinking" can more effectively forecast and avoid negative consequences.[8]
Similar projects
editThere have been various other projects involving delivering animals by parachute. Video footage purporting to show an aerial beaver drop, intended to improve water quality, appeared in October 2015.[9] The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources restocks its "high-elevation lakes and streams with tiny trout" dropped directly (no parachute) from an aircraft flying 100–150 feet above the water.[10]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c "Those Cats Go in Bang on Target". eresources.nlb.gov.sg. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
- ^ a b "Airdrop cats now go after those rats". eresources.nlb.gov.sg. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
- ^ a b "It 'rained cats in Sarawak". eresources.nlb.gov.sg. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
- ^ a b c d O'Shaughnessy, Patrick T (November 2008). "Parachuting Cats and Crushed Eggs – The Controversy Over the Use of DDT to Control Malaria". American Journal of Public Health. 98 (11): 1940–1948. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2007.122523. PMC 2636426. PMID 18799776.
- ^ Murray, Iain (2008). The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About- Because They Helped Cause Them. Regnery Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 9781596980549. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
- ^ "Wanted: 30 flying cats to rout rats". eresources.nlb.gov.sg. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
- ^ "Systems Thinking and How It Can Help Build a Sustainable World: A Beginning Conversation". 8 November 2018.
- ^ Dalzell, Michael D. (2006). "Whole Systems Thinking". Biotechnology Healthcare. 3 (6): 3. PMC 3564373. PMID 23393479.
- ^ Katie Herzog (23 October 2015). "Beavers are good for streams. Now watch found footage of beavers parachuting". Grist.
- ^ Scottie Andrew (13 July 2021). "Utah is dropping thousands of fish from planes – again". CNN.
Further reading
edit- M.J. Colbourne, W.H. Huehne, F. de S. LaChance, "The Sarawak Anti-Malaria Project", Sarawak Museum Journal 9 (1960): 215–248.
External links
edit- Catdrop.com: a site prepared by Patrick T. O’Shaughnessy, an associate professor at the University of Iowa
- Systems Thinking: Operation Cat Drop and Chaotic Kindness
- World Health Organization (2005). "Operation Cat Drop" (PDF). Quarterly News. 60: 6. Retrieved 24 August 2009.
- flycatfly.com
- Singapore’s operation cat drop which saved Sarawakians from possible disaster