Miracle of the Gulls
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The Miracle of the Gulls is often credited by Latter-day Saints ("Mormons") for saving the Mormon pioneers' first harvest in Utah. According to the traditional story, seagulls miraculously saved the 1848 crops by eating thousands of insects that were devouring their fields.
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[edit] Traditional Story
After Brigham Young led the first band of Latter-day Saints into what is now Salt Lake City, Utah, the pioneers had the good fortune of a relatively mild winter. Although late frosts in April and May decimated some of the crops, the Mormons seemed to be well on their way to self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, swarms of insects appeared in late May.
These insects, now called "Mormon crickets" because of this incident, are not true crickets, but instead belong to the katydid family. Having ornamental wings, they are unable to fly, but instead travel in huge devouring hordes. Mormon crickets eat all plant material in their path, but they also cannibalize any insects that die on the way. They're known to cyclically swarm in some areas of the Mountain West, especially in Utah and Nevada, but these bugs understandably terrified the pioneers. Stomping on the pests did not dissuade them from entering farms. Indeed, other crickets would advance to eat the remains of their brothers. Mormons, prolific journal writers, often cast this disaster in Biblical terms like the 8th plague of locusts.
According to some pioneers' accounts, legions of seagulls appeared by June 9, 1848. Many letters and diaries recount that these birds, native to the Great Salt Lake, ate mass quantities of crickets, drank some water, regurgitated, and continued eating more crickets. Ornithologists don't regard this as particularly unusual because the seagulls around the Great Salt Lake often eat insects in the adjacent valleys, but some pioneers saw the gulls' arrival as a miracle. The traditional story is that the seagulls annihilated the insects, ensuring the survival of some 4,000 Mormons who had traveled to Utah. For this reason, Seagull Monument was erected and the California gull is the state bird of Utah.
[edit] Critical Analysis
The traditional story is not without controversy. Some historians believe that the gulls were neither as widespread nor as effective against the insects than is often supposed.
Many pioneer journals recount the frosts, the swarms of insects, but no seagulls. From these differing accounts it seems that seagull intervention might have occurred in relatively isolated places. Nonetheless, by fall several Mormons credited the seagulls and divine intervention for having any crops left at all. This story was quickly incorporated into Mormon lore.
Also, other more mundane events may have helped save the crops. Some pioneer diaries recount success had by forming lines and thrashing through infested fields together. This forced all of the crickets into adjacent areas. Some of these accounts also describe seagulls at the edge of the field pecking away at the exodus of bugs. With or without seagulls, this technique may have saved much of the Mormons' first harvest in Utah. Historical evidence furthermore suggests that the gulls arrived after much damage had already been wreaked by frost and drought and that the "miracle" was not commonly recognized as such until after it occurred.
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[edit] Sources
Leonard Arrington & Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience at 104 (Knopf, 1979).
William G. Hartley, Mormons, Crickets, and Gulls, A New Look at an Old Story, in The New Mormon History 137 (ed. D. Michael Quinn). Signature books, 1992.
