SOMETHING ELSE I DIDN'T KNOW

In on of his books that Ive been reading, John Gray mentioned Mao's campaign to get rid of sparrows in China. Here's what the BBC has on this episode:

China follows Mao with mass cull
Last Updated: Tuesday, 6 January, 2004, 15:45 GMT
By Tim Luard
BBC News Online

But how does this latest mass cull compare with those of the 1950s, when Mao Zedong ordered the killing of what he called the country's biggest four evils - rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows?

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.

The anti-sparrow campaign, for instance, was extremely effective but had tragic results. ... 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.