7 Serious Problems That Had Hilarious Cartoon Solutions

7

Guam Targeted An Invasive Snake Species By Dive-Bombing Them With Poisoned Mouse Assassins

Sometime during World War II, a cargo ship arrived in one of Guam's ports. But unbeknownst to anyone at the time, a host of brown tree snakes had stowed away on the vessel, and it slipped the snakes into the island like a reptilian STD. And while everyone was a bit preoccupied with the ongoing world war, the snakes multiplied. Exponentially.

Pavel KirillovExactly what every island paradise needs: a serpent plague.

Since Guam has no indigenous snakes, this invader from Australia had zero competition for groceries. As a result, the brown tree snake has spent the last half century severely depleting several of Guam's native species. It wasn't long before the USDA and EPA reached the same conclusion: The snake had to go. But besides shipping in a trained army of mongooses, poison would be the only solution. But how do you poison an entire species out of a region without seriously damaging the other fauna and flora in the process? Three words: skydiving mice assassins.

As it turns out, acetaminophen (better known as Tylenol) does more than relieve pain and lower your fever; it's a tailor-made poison for snakes. The drug prevents their blood from carrying oxygen, and despite looking like demon spawn from hell, brown tree snakes need oxygen to live just like the rest of us. When it came to finding a way to deliver the acetaminophen to snakes quick enough that there would still be some birds left, the people of Guam came up with an ingenious solution: They stuffed the acetaminophen inside dead mice and sent them parachuting into the treetops.

Peter Savarie/U.S. Geological Survey Like fuzzy wuzzy Green Berets

6

The Fastest Way To Clean Up A Beached Whale

Beached whales are one of the saddest sights in the world, and watching is all we can do while these wriggling behemoths die as their lack of legs comes around to kick them in the blowhole. Even today, we still have no idea of why these oceanic titans toss themselves on our beaches. However, we do have a few ideas on how to get them off.

5

Ecologists Fixed The Rainforest With 12,000 Tons Of Orange Peels

Industrial waste tends to have a bad reputation. Many large plants and factories have a habit of polluting soil and water with disgusting runoff, killing plant life and giving fish all matter of unappetizing mutations. However, there is one industry whose waste is achieving the exact opposite, using its detritus to heal the rainforest. We speak, of course, of the orange juice industry.

In 1997, two ecologists entered into an unlikely partnership with Costa Rican OJ manufacturer Del Oro with the intent to kill two birds with one USFWS-licensed stone. It was the scientists' theory that the pulp and peels of oranges could help them reforest the barren area of a national park, so they wished to use the company's squeezed oranges in their experiment. In return, the company had a free and ethical place to dump all of its citrus-y waste.

4

Relocating Beavers By Dropping Them Out Of Airplanes

Back in 1948, Idaho's Department of Fish and Game had a bit of a beaver problem. An uneven population had developed throughout the state, and since beavers live to build dams and route water like little fuzzy engineers, this meant some areas got too much water while others got too little. Also, they really wanted to build some houses in one heavily beavered area, which meant it was time to start some evictions. Fortunately, instead of killing them, officials decided on a much more humane alternative: grabbing them, shoving them into boxes, and kicking them out of flying planes.

Idaho Fish and Game Department Humans really have a thing for airborne rodent solutions, it seems.

3

Numerous Cities Solved Cop Shortages With Cardboard Cutouts

When it comes to following the law, there's nothing like a siren and flashing lights to make people behave. That's why police want to be as visible as possible; their mere presence is enough to send crime plummeting like it's been dropped from a rooftop by Batman. But since police officers can't be everywhere at once, a number of cities around the world are now fighting crime with the power of cardboard. That's right, the cop on the corner may in fact be a life-size facsimile.

In Bangalore, India, traffic is so notoriously bad that it's not unusual for people to up and drive the wrong way. Realizing that no good will come of this, police now have fake cops posted at three busy intersections. As the police commissioner states: "The tendency among road users is that whenever they see there is no traffic policemen at any stretch of the road, they try to violate traffic rules." So now, these cardboard prints of mustachioed Bangalore cops take the beats no one else will, staring angrily into traffic and signaling that any wrong-way driver should turn the hell around.

Meanwhile, in Fife, Scotland, their first Scottish-Arborean police officer has already become a bit of a celebrity. "Pop-up Bob" patrols streets with his radar gun in an attempt to deter speeding. He moves to a new location every hour, because even cardboard people need a change of scenery every now and then.

But the most realistic cardboard cop has to be the one guarding a train station in Boston. That's because it's the cardboard twin of a real beat cop, Officer David Silen. Since putting up a cutout of this Transit Police officer, the number of monthly bicycle thefts at Alewife Station has decreased from five to one. It goes to show that even a bit of thick paper with a badge painted on is enough for most punks to ask themselves how lucky they are.

2

The Rural U.S. Rigged A Phone Network Through Barbed Wire Fences

By the late 1800s, most people in urban areas could enjoy the magic and convenience of the Bell Telephone system. But while anyone could pick up a telephonic device at their local general store, having access to telephone lines was another story altogether. While the cities were all hooked up, many rural and untamed parts of the country were getting fed up with still having to walk 70 miles to chat with a neighbor. Eventually, some enterprising farmers decided to take matters into their own hands and created an independent phone network some three million households strong.

How did they do it? Some smartypants realized that while they had no telephone wire, they had plenty of barbed wire to go around -- around their fields, to be specific. Turns out, all metal wire is pretty much the same for these purposes, and the stuff used to keep people at a distance could also keep them connected. To join these networks, all you had to do was buy a phone from Sears Roebuck and clip it to your fence, as long as you didn't mind having all your cows listening in on your conversations.

The Daily Herald"Unlimited texting if you add a mailbox."

1

Paris Unclogged Its Sewers With Giant Balls Of Iron

Have you told your toilet how much you love it today? You should. Toilets are still the pinnacle of human achievement, a vast network of pipes and porcelain keeping homes shit-free. But even these miracles are not without flaws. Whenever a toilet gets clogged, we curse our diet, grit our teeth, and grab a plunger. But what happens when sewers get backed up? Did old-timey people even have plungers big enough to defeat such barricades of poop?

via Atlas ObscuraLike many problems of the past, what they lacked in technology, they compensated for with sheer balls.