Kill Sparrows Campaign

The Four Pests Campaign, was one of the first actions taken in the Great Leap Forward in China from 1958 to 1962. The four pests to be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The extermination of sparrows is also known as the Great Sparrow Campaign or Kill Sparrows Campaign, which resulted in severe ecological imbalance, being one of the reasons for Great Chinese Famine. In 1960, Mao, the first president of PRC, ended the campaign against sparrows and redirected the fourth focus to bed bugs.