February 22, 2017
This is “Our Past
Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
Many Kansans may
be surprised to know that when the state was first settled there was not a
sparrow within 1,000 miles. This fact was recorded in the archives at the
Historical Society in Topeka. When settlers first came to Kansas there were
only a few insects. After the soil was cultivated by settlers, the insects
appeared like the plagues of Egypt. With no birds to feed upon the invading
swarms of bugs and flies, beetles and other insects, the settlers lost many of
their crops.
About the time the
grasshopper plague had devastated the fields in 1874 and left a barren waste
where once there were the hopes and aspirations of the new settlers, an idea
came to some of the pioneers. Since there were no birds, why not bring some to
the area?
So, in 1874, Fred
W. Giles, O.W. Jewell and others, ordered a shipment of English sparrows from
New York. They received 35 sparrows, but 4 were dead. The 31 left were in poor
condition according to the Giles account. However, “They were received with the
kindest attention.” The birds were restrained from freedom for a while. In fear
of losing all of the birds and when all but five died, the remaining birds were
turned loose to take their chance with life or death in nature. That fall Giles
counted twelve birds where there had been but five and the following autumn a
census listed the sparrow population at sixty. The third year the number had
increased to three hundred and after that they multiplied so rapidly that
within a very few years the cities were literally alive with sparrows and
people began killing them off in large numbers. However, in just a few short
years, Mr. Giles proudly reported that the insect annoyance was entirely
abated.
Sometimes when we
try to solve one problem, another appears to challenge us.
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