The Great Leap Forward was a plan to restructure China’s economy, and develop the nation.
One of the very first steps the Chinese government took in achieving this dream, was called the Four Pests campaign.
It was a plan to eradicate mosquitos, flies, rats, and sparrows.
Yes, I agree the first ones make sense, but why sparrows?
Apparently sparrows ate “too much fruit and grain,” and therefore needed to be exterminated.
It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but the campaign went through. The citizens of China were all encouraged to kill as many sparrows as they could, call it the kill sparrows challenge.
To do this, they all got drums, pots, pans, or anything else that made a loud noise, and would use them to make a racket where the sparrows lived. Too scared to land, the sparrows would fly around until they dropped out of the sky from exhaustion.
The Chinese would also destroy bird nests, smash sparrow eggs, and even just shoot them out of the sky. There would of course be rewards for whoever could shoot the most sparrows in a day, I mean what better way to get people to do things.
The campaign was enormously successful. They drove the sparrows perilously close to extinction. Now those pesky birds wouldn’t eat the grain or fruit. Success!!!
Or maybe not.
As the Chinese soon found out, sparrows eat a lot of locusts. They are virtually their only predator. With all the sparrows gone, nothing was keeping the locusts in check. So what happened to the locust population?
Yes, you guessed right. It exploded. It got insanely, obscenely, ridiculously massive.
And what do locusts eat?
Grains, fruit, plants, and basically anything remotely edible.
Massive locust swarms moved across China and destroyed any and all food they came across. There were so many, the swarms would routinely block out the sun. For years, the locusts destroyed huge amounts of food.
This in fact caused the largest famine in human history. Over 30 million people starved to death. It was one of the biggest humanitarian disasters of the 20th century.
And all because the Chinese government decided to kill this guy.
Source: quora.com
That, my friends I believe is the costliest mistake in history.
Moral of the story:
When trying to control nature, think properly and research well as you may be creating larger problems, not only for yourself but the entire world. A careless fire can become a wildfire that eventually destroys lives and properties.
Take care of animals more, they are an important part of our ecosystem.
Fantastic story. Another beautiful example of when we try to change the balance of nature. Another great one was the WHO's eradication of mosquitos on an island. Of course, the plague infested rats grew in amazing numbers and we got a plague epidemic. Will we never learn?
I found you through the #payitforward contest. You were featured by @viking-ventures. Congratulations. Wish you all the best.
Congrats! I have featured you in this week's
Pay it Forward Curation Contest. As such, I've also upvoted and resteemed the post and followed you.
https://steemit.com/payitforward/@viking-ventures/my-entry-for-the-pay-it-forward-curation-contest-week-10
@Fearless97, thank you for using the naijapidgin tag.
We encourage and support minnows.
Join us on discord: https://discord.gg/5SR8CH4 for more fun and to submit your posts for curation.
You like what we are doing and would like to support us? Join our trail here: https://steemauto.com/dash.php?i=15&id=1&user=naijapidgin
Sponsored by @ogoowinner
Woow a beautiful article full of moral lessons anyone can pick one from your article. We have to think before acting against nature. Thank you @fearless97
Thanks for visiting.
This is something I had never heard about before! Thank you for the information. I wish humans would just stop trying to control nature; she is a well oiled machine, and left to her own devices, controls herself perfectly ;)
You got it right my friend.
You got it right my friend.
And this shows perfectly what happens when you don't think things through, and try to screw with the natural balance of nature.
Exactly, you summarized it well.
Just wanted to let you know that @bmotives featured you in their entry post for the Pay It Forward Curation Contest
Thanks a lot.
What an eye opening post. We as a species are so dead-set on ensuring our own survival no matter the cost, in this case, it might have had the effect of wiping out a nation. People need to think of the consequences of their actions before they do anything. PS. I found your blog and this post thanks to @bmotives featuring you in a curation contest hosted by @thedarkhorse
Thanks so much for that.
I am here because of @bmotives!
Do you want to start maximizing your voting and earn from day one the right way?
If so, stop upvoting or resteeming until you have checked out the rules / do's and don'ts.
I am a member of @newbieresteemday and a sposor of newbie bonus for the "pay it forward" contest, both are for helping newbies grow the right way.
Please let me know if I can help.
Consider checking out my new initiative #ccc.
All the best!
Nature is a chain . We always think we can break the chain , change it or manipulate it , and everything will be ok . after all we are soooo smart .
@bmotives featured you in the Payitforward curation contest . that's what brought me to your post .
Entry post
As you may know @viking-ventures and @bmotives featured you this in week's Pay It Forward Curation Contest WEEK 10.
You're article is very informative. I have to say I'm a little speechless. To think that any government would not examine all possibilities before eradicating anything. Each thing on the planet has a purpose even though we may not know what that purpose may be. Yes, flies and mosquitos completely annoying and rats can post health hazards, yet each is part of the ecosystem. I am a little horrified at how they got rid of the sparrows, suppose since they view them as a pest it's a squish the bug mentality.
Well, if China needs to repopulate the sparrow. I have plenty in my backyard that we can transport over to start a new colony :D
If you read or watch some movies about the process, you'll be shocked... They're drumming for two days around the Polish embassy, and the result was they have to use shovel to remove the dead sparrows. So sad.. If it is happening now, I can imagine how's the rest of the world will react. 😢
OMG :( That is beyond horrific. I think I know what I'm going to read about tonight at work.
Chinese history always interesting to read, you'll find so many great influences of the Chinese to the world too
@cicisaja I did some reading over the past few days on this. It happened in the late 50s, early 60s. and created one of the worst famines China had ever seen. Seeing the pictures of them shoveling up the sparrows made my tummy turn. So they decided to change their 4th pest to bedbugs.
yes, then in 1998 they change it to cockroaches too. but the eardication of 4 pests continues
It was The Great Leader Mao programs that lead China to a tragedy which is called a great leap of China in 1958-1962, I have read this on wiki but thanks to you for sharing this and you're right, animals eradication will cause the nature imbalance.
Thanks to @bmotives who featured, so I can read this.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by fearless97 from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.