St. Matthew's Island: A Modern Parable

I heard about this story recently. The more I've thought about it, the more I've realized how much significance this has to various issues with modern society. I won't dwell on it, draw your own conclusions.

St Matthew's Island was an island off the coast of Alaska, deep in the Bering Strait. The island was populated almost entirely by lichen and other plant life. A few mice and foxes made up the entire mammal population. On rare occasion, an ice flow would allow a polar bear to visit the island, but even when this would happen, with no prey on the island no polar bear would not last long.

In the early 1940's the United States was fighting World War II against Japan in the Atlantic. Faced with the possibility of conflict expanding to the North Atlantic, the United States decided to set up a manned LORAD station on the island to monitor any future ship movements in the area. The intent was to periodically ship provisions to the island to keep food supplied to the crew. However, due to the war, the United States knew that the possibility existed that one day a situation could develop which would cut off this food supply. With no food supply native to the island that could support humans, a small herd of 29 reindeer was brought with to hunt should the need ever arise.

In 1945, the war ended and the LORAD station became unnecessary. The crew was loaded up and the station abandoned. The herd of reindeer was left behind.

The reindeer did quite well on St. Matthew's Island. While a nearly endless field of lichen would not feed military personnel, it was perfect for the reindeer. There were no predators to speak of, and no other large mammals to compete with for the food supply.

The reindeer's population exploded on the island. On occasion, biology teams would visit the island. By the late 1950's, the population had increased from 29 to 1,350. In 1963, the population topped 6,000.

That was it, though. It took about twenty years for the population to expand from nearly nothing to thousands. Once the population reached this level, however, the bubble burst. The supply of lichen gave out. After two decades of growth, it took only two years for the population to drop back down to only 43. Of these 42 were female, and the only male was found to be infertile. After a few more years these reindeer, too, would die off.

Like I said, I don't intend to elaborate on the possible significance of this story to society today. The meager few followers I have to this blog are smart people. Just give it some thought.