There was a time, back when Britain ruled India, when Delhi was infested with cobras. No matter where you went in the city, indoors or out, there was a likelihood of encountering one.

Cobra venom, even that of their young, is deadly. Cobras can control their dose, giving, if they want, a “dry” bite with no venom injected. However, when startled or feeling threatened, they usually don’t hold back, but give a devastating “wet” bite.

To reduce the number of cobras in the city, the British decided to offer a bounty on them. Kill a cobra and turn it in, and you received a small cash reward.

Poor people were thrilled by this source of income, and cobra-hunting became a means of family support.

The plan worked wonderfully. Over time, there were fewer and fewer cobras in the city. However, this meant that cobras were harder to find, and people who had earned a living from the bounty saw their incomes dwindle. To sustain their cash flow, some people began to farm cobras.

When officials realized that there were fewer cobras plaguing the city, yet many were still being turned in for reward, they ended the bounty.

People who had gamed the system by raising cobras were now stuck with hundreds of worthless snakes. So they released them.

The result? Delhi ended up with more cobras than it had before the bounty was put in place.

I couldn’t find any first-hand documentation proving this story is true. Nonetheless, the term, Cobra Effect, is often used when a solution makes a problem worse instead of better.

In 2007 and 2008 at Fort Benning, Georgia, an effort was made to reduce the wild pig population. Feral pigs were destroying equipment and crops and interfering with training areas on the Army post.

Hunting restrictions were relaxed and a bounty of $40 was offered for each pigtail turned in. Some people bought pigtails from commercial slaughterhouses and used them to collect the bounty.

Hunters put out feed, hoping to attract large, trophy-sized pigs. In addition to large specimens, medium and small pigs visited the feed sites, which upped the survival rate and resulted in population growth. Benning ended up with more pigs than it started with.

Officials in Mexico City came up with a plan to reduce air pollution. They would reduce the number of cars on the road by banning certain vehicles one day each week. The day a car was banned was based on the last digit of its license plate. This would force people to carpool or take public transportation once a week.

Many people, however, bought a second car to drive on their regular car’s banned day. These second cars were often cheap junkers with high emissions. The increase in older cars on the road caused the overall pollution level to go up instead of down.

For convenience sake, we moved our baking trays and pizza pans to a low, narrow cupboard. Whenever we open it, several of the occupants clatter out onto the floor.

The Cobra Effect is everywhere.

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