Mongoose as Rat Understudy

1917

Islands in the tropical or semi-tropical seas furnish ideal conditions for rats, and in many instances they have increased until they have become intolerable pests, threatening the total ruin of the inhabitants. On one sugar cane plantation in Puerto Rico 25,000 rats were killed in less than six months.

In Jamaica an effort was made to suppress them by introducing the mongoose, which resulted in the establishment of a second pest. In the Hawaiian Islands the introduction of the mongoose caused the rats to take refuge in the tree-tops, where many of them have nests and have arboreal habits, like squirrels. Wherever present on these islands the mongoose has rendered it exceedingly difficult to raise domestic fowls of any kind. — National Geographic Magazine.