The following is a lesson in why you don’t mess with cats, and also why trying to manage ecosystems is usually a bad idea.

From the article:

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.

But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.

The article goes on to say:

The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem — even with the best of intentions — without thinking long and hard, the study said.

We can think long and hard all we want, but we are incapable of thinking of every possible scenario. We can’t master Mother Nature. The whole reason why they are called “unintended consequences,” believe or not, is because they are consequences that are unforeseen (i.e. unintended).

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