4 ms·
The full quote (and the rest of the article), when including the parts you omitted, implies that it was the campaign against sparrows, not mosquitos, that was t
by vosper 7y ago
The full quote (and the rest of the article), when including the parts you omitted, implies that it was the campaign against sparrows, not mosquitos, that was the main problem:
> The four pests to be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The extermination of sparrows is also known as Smash Sparrows Campaign (Chinese: 打麻雀运动; pinyin: Dǎ Máquè Yùndòng) or Eliminate Sparrows Campaign (Chinese: 消灭麻雀运动; pinyin: Xiāomiè Máquè Yùndòng), which resulted in severe ecological imbalance, being one of the causes of the Great Chinese Famine. In 1960, Mao Zedong ended the campaign against sparrows and redirected the fourth focus to bed bugs.
There's no suggestion in the article you referenced that attempting to eliminate mosquitos had anything to do with the famine.
- carlmr 7y ago>There's no suggestion in the article you referenced that attempting to eliminate mosquitos had anything to do with the famine. Not directly, but assuming that what humans regard as pests don't have a function in the ecosystem, so I'd say his point is valid. Mess with the ecosystem in an extreme way and you might suffer dire consequences.
- jb775 7y ago> Mess with the ecosystem in an extreme way and you might suffer dire consequences. This was exactly my main point. Apparently the elimination of sparrows also led to a dramatic increase in mosquitos (since sparrows eat mosquitoes), so it had a domino effect of negative impacts. They didn't have the technology to obliterate mosquitoes at the time, and that's essentially what we're talking about here...so I'm saying there will likely be unforeseen consequences if people mess with this. (coming from a guy who hates mosquitoes - i actually bought mosquito pants last year bc they are so bad in the summer when I'm doing yard work)