![]() ![]() “I shall largely speak of mice, but my thoughts are on man,” he would later write in a comprehensive report.Īt first, the mice did well. It was a mouse utopia.Ĭalhoun’s intent was to observe the effects on the mice of population density, but the experiment produced results that went beyond that. He provided all the food and water they needed and ensured that no predator could gain access. Calhoun, best known for his mouse experiments in the 1960s when he worked for the National Institute for Mental Health.Ĭalhoun enclosed four pairs of mice in a 9 x 4.5-foot metal pen complete with water dispensers, tunnels, food bins and nesting boxes. One of the more famous ethologists in recent decades was John B. This is an area illuminated by ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior. Perhaps the human/pet welfare state works because one of the parties has a brain the size of a golf ball or a pomegranate. It seems like a win-win, so maybe a welfare state can work after all. In fact, my loving domination is a condition for the free stuff. ![]() My two rat terriers get free food and free health care, though I am not only their provider, but I am also their “master” too. Moreover, for the most part, they seem to like it. Our personal pets live in a sort of welfare state. Readers should view what I present here as a prod to thought and discussion and not much more. Because they require knowledge beyond my own, I cannot offer definitive answers. These are fascinating questions that I am certainly not the first to ask. What would happen if animals in the wild could count on human sources for their diet and never have to hunt or scrounge? What if, in other words, we humans imposed a generous welfare state on our furry friends? Would the resulting experience offer any lessons for humans who might be subjected to similar conditions? Not having to work for food and shelter sounds appealing and compassionate, doesn’t it? Studies have shown that panhandling animals have a shorter lifespan. It transforms wild and healthy animals into habitual beggars. The National Park Service’s website for Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan advises, Signs in national and state parks all over America warn visitors, “Please Don’t Feed the Animals.” Some of those government-owned parks provide further explanation, such as “The animals may bite” or “It makes them dependent.” To what extent do the mouse utopia lessons apply to humans? Calhoun, best known for his mouse experiments in the 1960s. After about 55 days, the population doubled as the rats filled the most desirable space in the pen, where access to the food tunnel was easy.One of the more famous ethologists in recent decades was John B. The experiment began, and as you might expect, the rats used a time that was usually wasted for food and shelter for excessive sexual intercourse. It’s not often that anything is described as a “utopia,” but there were also lions that were picking us up one by one. The rats were selected for their health, obtained from the National Institutes of Health, and extreme care was taken to prevent any disease in the universe.Īs well as this, no predator was present in the utopia, as its causes stand. ![]() ![]() The weather was kept at 68☏ (20☌), which is the temperature of the mouse among those of you who are not rats. They can access unlimited food through 16 food hoppers accessed through the tunnel, which can feed 25 rats together and a bottle of water just above. The environment was created to eliminate problems that could lead to wildlife deaths. In this study, he took four breeding rats and placed them inside a “utopia”. The most infamous of the experiments was named, quite dramatically, the Universe 25. Calhoun developed a series of experiments that basically met every need of rats and then tracked the effects of time on the population. The answer – according to his study – was soon cannibalism followed by an apocalypse. As it happens, advances in agriculture, changes in agriculture and new agricultural technologies have given us enough food to feed 10 billion people and how food has been distributed in a way that has caused widespread famine and starvation.Īs we use our resources and the climate crisis gets worse, things can change – but for now, we’ve always been able to produce more food than we need, even if we don’t have the will or ability to deliver it. Some – the Malthusians – even took the view that as soon as the resources ran out, the population would “control” itself through the death of the population until a sustainable population came. During this time, concerns have been raised that our numbers could increase our ability to produce food, leading to widespread famine. The world’s human population has grown over the last few hundred years, from our estimate of one billion in 1804 to seven billion in 2017. ![]()
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