more fun n frivolity at:
Bush Orders Mass Bald Eagle Slaughter To Stop Spread Of Bird Flu
while those fruitcakes who have suggested culling wild birds to stop bird flu, Chairman Mao’s experiment should give pause for thought:
The late Chinese leader’s “four pests” campaign proved the Communist Party’s power to mobilise China’s millions of peasants but the results were often unfortunate.
Mao Zedong’s mass extermination campaign went horribly wrong
The anti-sparrow campaign, for instance, was extremely effective but had tragic results.
Villagers were told to rush out to the fields, banging on pots and pans and screaming at the tops of their voices.
The sparrows and won’t have been just sparrows; many birds involved took to the air, and as the pandemonium continued, stayed there, too terrified to land, until they dropped dead from exhaustion.
The only trouble was that sparrows are a vital link in the food chain and are particularly fond of locusts. With no sparrows left to eat them, there was a plague of locusts, the crops were ruined and millions of people died in the ensuing famine. [famine not solely from the pests increasing in this way, but played a role]
China follows Mao with mass cull – during SARS
Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/12/20 02:59