French Colonial Authorities Came Up With an Incentive Plan to Eradicate Pests… It Backfired
The British colonial authorities’ cancellation of the snake eradication incentive plan turned out to be their second bad decision, and it, too, backfired. Without the bounties, cobra skins and captive cobras were now worthless. So Delhi’s cobra farmers released the snakes back into the wild – the “wild” in this case being the city of Delhi. The snake infestation was increased by orders of magnitude, and Delhi wound up with many times more cobras than before the authorities launched their ill-advised plan.
In 1902, French colonial authorities had a similar experience in Hanoi, Vietnam, when they sought to enlist civilians in controlling a rat infestation. Like the British, the French authorities offered bounties for rats, to be paid out upon delivery of their tails. However, colonial officials soon began to notice rats scurrying around the city with no tails. Unlike the Indians of Delhi, the enterprising Vietnamese of Hanoi did not raise rats. Instead, rat catchers simply severed their tales. They then released them back into the city so they could procreate and produce more rats, and thus maintain the rat catchers’ stream of revenue.
