When Nature Is in Balance

Marion Island, a windswept dot in the southwest Indian Ocean, has long been a nursery ground for seabirds. Among these are albatrosses, penguins and burrowing petrels. Since there were no predators, the birds felt safe.

In time, a permanent weather station was set up on the island and the people manning it were troubled with mice. To remedy the problem, back in 1949 five cats were brought in. But the furry immigrants ignored the mice and went for the easy prey​—hundreds of thousands of birds.

By 1975 the feline population was about 2,100 and was increasing at a rate of 23 percent a year​—a real threat to the island’s feathered inhabitants! The types of birds found there start reproducing at the age of four or five years and lay only one or two eggs at a time. But the cats? Why, they start breeding before they are a year old and can produce up to ten kittens annually!

Matters were getting out of hand. So an appeal for help was sent to the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. This led to a two-and-a-half-year research program. But by the end of that period, the cats numbered about 4,000 and were killing about half a million birds a year!

The scientists came up with what they said was a potent, cat-specific virus that they believed to be harmless to birds and seals. By mid-1983 the cats were down to about 350 and were still decreasing. (Supplement to South Africa’s Financial Mail, July 29, 1983) As the published report comments, this story “illustrates the folly of man’s unthinking interference in the balance of nature.”

Human wisdom sometimes boomerangs, and the best-laid plans go awry. But true Christians anticipate the day near at hand when all creation will be in perfect balance and Paradise will exist earth wide. Then, under heaven’s direction and blessing, man will have the wisdom needed to fulfill the original God-given mandate to ‘have in subjection the fish, flying creatures and animals of the earth.’​—Genesis 1:26; Luke 23:43.