[Dr. Sivana]

Give a $50 bounty on each Nutria turned in.

My Canadian wife told me a story about how her uncle went out camping with another fellow years ago. The fellow built a campfire, and told him whenever you see two little yellow lights, shoot at them. The next morning, they were surrounded by wolf carcasses, and turned in the ears for a $25 bounty.

[marktwain]

It could be based on truth.

I am working on a story about a friend of mine (he is 100). In the 1950s he and his partner went to Canada and shot wolves from the air for bounty.

In addition to the $25 bounty, they sold the complete wolf to the Indians in the area for another $25. That made $50 a wolf, when the minimum wage was 75 cents. So each wolf was the equivalent of 1.6 weeks of work for minimum wage. They brought in 51 wolves in three weeks. The story made national news.

It is well documented. I even have pictures.

[Jagermonster]

About the bounties - I expect a bounty works for slow-breeding critters that are a lot of trouble to raise, but for fast-breeding critters, a bounty might make the problem worse.

The British tried this in India with cobras. 🐍🐍 Then the locals started to breed the cobras to collect the bounty. When the British got wise, they shut down the bounty program. The cobra breeders had no further use for the cobras, so they released them. The wild cobra population then increased because of the breeding program. This made the problem worse than it was before the bounty. 🐍 🐍 🐍 🐍

This situation is the textbook case of the "Cobra Effect," Which is used to show unintended consequences of incorrect economic stimulus.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

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