Operation Cat Drop is the name given to the delivery of cats, equipment and supplies by the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

to remote regions of the then-British

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

Sarawak Sarawak ( , ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. It is the largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia. Sarawak is located in East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is ...

(today part of

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

), on the island of

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

in 1960. 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. The operation was reported as a "success" at the time. 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. An additional source references a "recruitment" drive for 30 cats a few days prior to Operation Cat Drop.

Background

Insecticide Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, i ...

s including

dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. ...

(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. 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. 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 Biomagnification, also known as bioamplification or biological magnification, is the increase in concentration of a substance, e.g a pesticide, in the tissue (biology), tissues of organisms at successively higher levels in a food chain. This inc ...

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. 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. The native domestic cat population being reduced as an unintended consequence of the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

(WHO) spraying DDT for

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

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 In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences, more colloquially called knock-on effects) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was po ...

lead to other events more generally, and particularly how frameworks such as

systems thinking Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts.Anderson, Virginia, & Johnson, Lauren (1997). ''Systems Thinking Ba ...

or "whole systems thinking" can more effectively forecast and avoid negative consequences.

Ecological Lessons Learned

Operation Cat Drop underscored the complexity of ecosystems and the potential for unforeseen consequences when intervening in natural processes. The initial use of

DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. ...

to control mosquitoes disrupted multiple food chains, leading to cascading effects that necessitated further intervention. This event highlights the importance of adopting a systems thinking approach in environmental management, considering the interconnectedness of species and the potential ripple effects of human actions.

Similar projects

There have been various other projects involving delivering animals by parachute. Video footage purporting to show an aerial

beaver drop The beaver drop was a 1948 Idaho Department of Fish and Game program to relocate beavers from Northwestern Idaho to the Chamberlain Basin in Central Idaho. The program involved moving 76 beavers by airplane and parachute, parachuting them down ...

, intended to improve water quality, appeared in October 2015. The

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) is part of the Utah Department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah in the United States. The mission of the Division of Wildlife Resources is to serve the people of Utah as trustee and guard ...

restocks its "high-elevation lakes and streams with tiny trout" dropped directly (no parachute) from an aircraft flying 100–150 feet above the water.

References

External links

Catdrop.com
a site prepared by Patrick T. O’Shaughnessy, an associate professor at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

Systems Thinking: Operation Cat Drop and Chaotic Kindness
* {{cite journal , author=

, year=2005 , title=Operation Cat Drop , url=https://www.who.int/formerstaff/publications/qn60.pdf , journal=Quarterly News , volume=60 , pages=6 , accessdate=2009-08-24
flycatfly.com

Singapore’s operation cat drop which saved Sarawakians from possible disaster
1960 in Malaya Biological pest control Cats History of Sarawak Parachuting

Background

Ecological Lessons Learned

Similar projects

See also

References

Further reading

External links