The Deautigul Ones

A second death for mice and men

by Adam Tatelman, Arts Editor

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

has been written about the utopia’s potential to become a dystopian

nightmare. Such stories are not mere entertainment. They are based in
contemporary societal realities, often predicting the future by asking “if this
goes on, what shall happen?" In the case of the stories above, the answers
are less than comforting. Something rotten festers within the utopian ideal,
perhaps within all of western civilization, and its full horror can be glimpsed
even in the smallest of worlds.

Huxley's Brave New World to Orwell's 1984, much political fiction

John B. Calhoun (1917-1995) was an ethologist and behavioural researcher
who conducted a series of experiments on rats and mice to determine

the effects of overpopulation within what he called a “Mortality Inhibiting
Environment;” essentially, a utopia for rodents.

His first experiment took place in 1947. Calhoun discovered that a colony
of Norway rats, when given a 10,000 square foot outdoor terrarium, began
to willingly segregate themselves into clans of roughly 12 rats as their
population increased. Larger groups of rats appeared to be incapable of
social maintenance, and subsequently disbanded. Curiously, the colony's
population never rose above 200 rats during the 28-month research period,
despite the surplus of space and fertile females.

Calhoun continued to add variables to subsequent versions of his rat utopia,
such as building in separate living spaces for the rat clans. In 1968, Calhoun
repeated the experiment with a more refined set of circumstances. Using
property and specimens secured by the National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH), Calhoun introduced four breeding pairs of mice into his Mouse
Universe, a nine-square-foot pen lined with mesh tunnels, simulating walk-
up apartments. There were 256 mouse apartments in total, each containing
tood, water, and nesting scraps, i.e. all the necessities of life. There were no
illnesses or predators to contend with; only the lack of space.

Theoretically, the Mouse Universe would have adequately sustained just
over 3,800 mice, but it never had to. Every time Calhoun ran the experiment,
the mouse colony exhibited identical patterns of social breakdown, which
he described as “behavioural sink.” The pattern ran its course through four
distinct phases, the first of which Calhoun called “strive.”

During the strive phase, the first 8 mice spent 104 days adjusting to their
new environment and nesting. Following this, the exploit phase saw the
mouse population double every 55 days—impressive even by mouse
standards. The equilibrium phase was reached at day 560, when the mouse
population peaked at 2,200—not yet truly overcrowded from a purely spatial
perspective, but full to bursting in terms of social space.

In the months leading up to day 560, the mice began to display increasingly
anti-social behavior. Adolescent mice were rejected from social territories
with increasingly greater frequency, causing them to become passive and
reclusive. This phenomenon grew with each passing generation, leading

to the persecution of passive males by roving mouse gangs, including

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