Ever thought about where sparrows came from?
Those little birds are quite literally everywhere, but they are not native to New Zealand.
In fact, they were deliberately introduced by one very determined man who thought they would be the answer to New Zealand’s burgeoning pest control problem.
As New Zealand land was converted into crops, farmers struck problems. There were too many bugs and not enough birds to eat them. A lot of native birds eat seeds rather than concentrating on bugs and crops were being lost.
Politician Walter Brodie thought that because sparrows ate bugs overseas, why wouldn’t they do that here?
It seemed a bit short sighted. While newspapers here were reporting on Brodie’s efforts, papers in places like England were saying there was a bounty on sparrows (and their eggs) to rid themselves of the pest.
Brodie however, opted to organise an importation of sparrows. In 1859, 300 of them were put aboard the Swordfish bound for New Zealand. Brodie said they were from the “finest hedge rows.”
But none of them survived the journey.
Brodie was not deterred. After all he was already the man who had successfully introduced English pheasants into the country.
In 1862, newspapers reported 43 of the little birds had arrived. Their fate is not known
It was a misguided idea - naturalist Thomas Kirk had calculated that one pair of sparrows could become over 300,000 in five years. That means over six million in five years!
Then Captain Alfred Stevens of the Matoaka brought out English song birds for the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society. On January 10, 1867 he arrived with a large number of starlings, larks, blackbirds, thrushes, pheasants, and partridges. He followed this in 1868 with twelve pairs of thrushes, 77 pairs of blackbirds, 22 house sparrows, 7 redpoles, 1 yellow-hammer, 1 pair bramble finches, and 1 robin. His third and final shipment was in 1869. (no we don’t know why anyone would bring in one of a species).
By 1879, the house sparrows were being described as a pest and shortly after there there were sparrow shooting clubs.
The Matoaka made eight trips to New Zealand. With her first arrival in 1859 she was the largest ship ever to make the trip.
Her cargo - along with birds - were passengers and often gold. On her final trip between London and Lyttelton suffragist Kate Shepherd and her family were among the passengers.
In May1869, the ship began the return run. On board were 44 passengers and £50,000 in gold.
A few days later the ship went missing and was never heard from again.
Captain Stevens - along with his crew and passengers - were lost at sea.
Photo by Saad Chaudhry.​