[cameron_b]

The attempt is surely to solve for an abundance of beetles, but it is often helpful to think of many of these 'problems' as imbalances.

Nature does not work in two-variable equations, and the abundance or absence of an element typically has repercussions that are difficult to study.

An often-cited example of missing the bigger picture in controlling one variable would be the Chinese campaign against the Four Pests - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign