> In the late 1960s, US scientist John B Calhoun created a ‘Mouse Utopia’ – an artificial environment which provided what he regarded as the perfect breeding conditions. To everyone’s amazement, and without any signs of disease or hardship; **after a few months of rapid population growth**, the mouse colony ceased to reproduce at all; and soon became extinct – every single mouse dying within three years.
Biggest question: Since the conditions were not changed, and the population was growing while low, why did it not grow again after the deaths shrank it back to the starting size?
In: Biology
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
Ignore my previous comment if anyone read it, I was very incorrect.
Basically the tl;Dr for OP’s question is that overpopulation conditions in animals (such as rats and mice) with social order of some kind results in disorientation in individuals there in, and causes pathological behavior changes ranging from mild deviations from what would be called normal such as self-isolation and failure of maternal instinxts, to severe and extreme deviations such as cannibalism and unprovoked aggression.
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