A cold morning in March of 1890, the pharmacist and theater goer Eugene Schieffelin headed to New York’s Central Park loaded with cages full of birds.
Motivated by his love of the play of William Shakespeare, Schieffelin opened the cages and released the birds.
But what happened next, changed America’s ecology forever .
What exactly does the British playwright have to do with an environmental problem on American soil?
Birds and theater
The Birds appear often in Shakespeare’s plays and poems.
“(Shakespeare) uses birds to express the depth of romantic sentiment in Romeo and Juliet. He uses them to express the screech of owls at night in Macbeth and King Lear. He uses them for dramatic purposes, ”Drew Lichtenberg of the Shakespeare Theater Company told the BBC.
Choughs, crows, cormorants, owls, nightingales and larks are among the 60 species that appear in the works of the British playwright , who for centuries inspired bird lovers.
Schieffelin loved birds and also loved the Shakespeare’s play.
German immigrant, was a member of the Society American of Acclimatization , which aimed to introduce plants and birds from Europe in the “New World”, to generate comfort and familiarity in the new nation of America.
So, putting his two passions together, Schieffelin decided that it would be a great idea to introduce as many of the birds mentioned by the playwright as possible to North America.
That winter morning of , released 60 starlings in Central Park hoping they could breed .
The American Acclimatization Society had already released other species of birds – some commonly found in Shakespeare’s plays, such as nightingales and larks – but none had survived.
A year later, Schieffelin released 40 more starlings.
There wasn’t much reason to think that starlings would have better luck than attempts with the other species … But those hundred starlings did succeed.
Unfortunately.
A disaster in the fields and in the air
Now there are around 200 millions of starlings in North America.
Aggressive and burly, they cause devastation to habitats and crops of farmers.
It is estimated that, each year, this invasive species causes almost $ 1, million dollars in crop damage , particularly fruit trees.
They are so cumbersome that they are among the few species of birds that are not protected by law.
But they are also a big problem for the world of aviation.
When a group of starlings collides with a plane the effects are devastating.
In 1960 caused the deadliest bird strike accident in aviation history .
Birds entered the engines of a plane as it took off from Boston’s Logan Airport, and the aircraft crashed, killing per sonas.
A plague
In the US there were several attempts to end them in more than a century.
People have shot them, tried to poison them, trap them or scare them.
In the years , the White House even tested speakers that emitted owl sounds and the columns around the Capitol were equipped with electrified cables.
Nothing worked . The starling population continued to grow and became a pest.
There are some factors that explain why the starling population has grown so much.
To begin with, its gregariousness protects them from larger predatory birds.
Additionally, starlings harass and expel other birds from their nests.
In fact, scientists believe there is a correlation between the large number of starlings and the decline of native species such as the red-faced woodpecker, swift and bluebird.
They are a omnivorous species , for which it can exploit a wide range of food, from invertebrates, to seeds and fruits.
Their binocular vision combined with the characteristics of their beak allows them to find food in colder climates better than other birds, which means that they do not have to migrate to warmer climates in winter.
Ironically, unlike other birds much more present in his work, Shakespeare only mentions to the starlings once in “Henry IV.”
Hotspur rebels against the king and thinks of ways to torment him, and fantasizes about teaching a starling to say “Mortimer”, the name of one of the king’s enemies.
And yet, that only mention is the cause of a real environmental disaster.
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