• Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    2 days ago

    Memes aside, how many birds were killed during the 4 Pests Campaign? Because that’s what caused all the starvation during the Great Leap Forward when there weren’t birds to eat insects which caused huge swarms of locusts to eat all the crops.

    Something similar could happen here in the US, except it will be the collapse of ecosystems due to not enough pollinators, rather than biblical plagues destroying all the grain.

    • AF_R [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      2 days ago

      The American species of locust was effectively driven to extinction about 100 years ago due to a combination of aggressive campaigns to exterminate them and their breeding grounds and changes in farming practices and types of crop cultivation.

      It’s extinctions all the way down, baby!

      • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 days ago

        The concern about bird populations though is that they’re pollinators (just like honeybees). A lot of plants rely on birds for pollination. No birds = no plants = herbivores starve and die = carnivores starve and die = total ecosystem collapse. This would rapidly accelerate climate change and desertification.

    • vegeta1 [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      I just heard of hundreds of millions of sparrows. Not sure about other species. If things collapse like that in the US…