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'''Operation Cat Drop''' is the name commonly given to an account, of uncertain veracity, about the delivery, by the [[United Kingdom]]'s [[Royal Air Force]], of cats to a remote village in Sarawak, Borneo. The cats were delivered in crates, dropped by parachute, as part of a broader program of supplying cats to combat a plague of rats. The cat population had previously been reduced as an unintended consequence of spraying
It is not clear whether the events of the Operation Cat Drop story actually transpired as the story is commonly told or if the cats were ever delivered by parachute. While cats are indeed unusually susceptible to the toxic effects of DDT, and cat die-offs were a not unheard of side effect of malaria control operations, many aspects of the story have been called into question. For example, it was probably [[dieldrin]] rather than DDT which was used for malaria control in the region and caused numerous cat deaths.<ref name="pmid18799776">{{cite journal |author=O'Shaughnessy PT |title=Parachuting cats and crushed eggs the controversy over the use of DDT to control malaria |journal=Am J Public Health |volume=98 |issue=11 |pages=1940–8 |date=November 2008 |pmid=18799776 |pmc=2636426 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2007.122523 |url=http://www.ajph.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=18799776}}</ref>
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