The American Acclimatization Society was a group founded in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1871 dedicated to introducing European flora

Flora

Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...

 and fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

 into North America for both economic and cultural reasons. The group's charter explained its goal was to introduce "such foreign varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom as may be useful or interesting." The society's efforts had a powerful impact on the natural history of North America, particularly due to its unfortunate success in introducing invasive bird species.

Background

In 1854, the Societe Zoologique d'Acclimatation was founded in Paris by French naturalist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French zoologist and an authority on deviation from normal structure. He coined the term ethology.He was born in Paris, the son of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire...

, whose 1849 treatise Sur la Naturalization des Animaux Utiles (On the Naturalization of Useful Animals) had urged the French government to introduce, and when necessary selectively breed, foreign animals both to provide meat and to control pests. The group's name was later shortened to La Societe d'Acclimatation (Acclimatisation society

Acclimatisation society

Acclimatisation societies were societies created in order to enrich the fauna of a region with animals and plants from around the world. The first such society was La Societé Zoologique d'Acclimatation founded in Paris in 1854 by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Such societies spread quickly around...

) and inspired the formation of similar groups around the world, particularly in countries that had been colonized by Europeans.

Founding

Even before the American society's founding, wealthy New York residents and naturalists had deliberately sought to introduce foreign animals. In 1864 the commissioners of Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

 had introduced Java Sparrow

Java Sparrow

The Java Sparrow, Padda oryzivora also known as Java Finch, Java Rice Sparrow or Java Rice Bird is a small passerine bird. This estrildid finch is a resident breeding bird in Java, Bali and Bawean in Indonesia. It is a popular cagebird, and has been introduced in a large number of other...

s, House Sparrow

House Sparrow

The House Sparrow is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. One of about 25 species in the genus Passer, the House Sparrow occurs naturally in most of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia...

s, Chaffinches and Blackbirds into the park. The European sparrows were reported to have "multiplied amazingly" -- they quickly became one of the most common birds in New York—though the others did not seem to do as well. After the society's founding, such efforts were redoubled. The group's annual meeting held at the New York aquarium in 1877 reported that the release of 50 pairs of English Skylarks into Central Park had only been a partial success, since most had flown across the East River to take up residence at Newtown and Canarsie in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

. At the meeting, the recent release of European Starling

European Starling

The Common Starling , also known as the European Starling or just Starling, is a passerine bird in the family Sturnidae.This species of starling is native to most of temperate Europe and western Asia...

s, Japanese Finches

Japanese Grosbeak

The Japanese Grosbeak, Eophona personata, is a finch native to East Asia....

 and Pheasants into the park were noted. The meeting adjourned with the group resolved to introduce more chaffinches, skylarks, European Robins and tits -- "birds which were useful to the farmer and contributed to the beauty of the groves and fields" -- in the city.

Shakespeare's birds

By 1877 New York pharmacist Eugene Schieffelin

Eugene Schieffelin

Eugene Schieffelin belonged to the and the New York Zoological Society. He was responsible for introducing the starling to North America.-Starling release:...

 was the chairman of the society.
Another notable member of the society was wealthy silk merchant Alfred Edwards, who constructed bird boxes around Manhattan to help House Sparrows to breed.

But it was Schieffelin, an avid admirer of Shakespeare, who was the society's driving force. Some accounts of his efforts claim that he had resolved that as an aesthetic goal, the organization should introduce every bird species mentioned in the Bard's works. Other accounts say this is unproven. The society's wildest success was with the European Starling

European Starling

The Common Starling , also known as the European Starling or just Starling, is a passerine bird in the family Sturnidae.This species of starling is native to most of temperate Europe and western Asia...

. The bird appears in Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...

 when Hotspur considers using its vocal talents to drive the King mad. Since King Henry was refusing to pay a ransom to release his disloyal brother-in-law Edmund Mortimer, Hotspur says: "I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but "Mortimer," and give it him,
to keep his anger still in motion."

The American poet William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...

 admired Schieffelin's efforts and wrote his poem The Olde-World Sparrow ("A winged settler has taken his place/With Teutons and Men of the Celtic race") after spending an evening with Schieffelin, who had just released a shipment of sparrows into his yard.

Schieffelin himself is seen by modern biologists as "an eccentric at best, a lunatic at worst." The society's effort to introduce Shakespeare's birds into New York's public parks was described as "infamous" by the ecologist John Marzluff, who also called the establishment of a breeding population of starlings the society's "most notorious introduction." Marzluff writes that the motives of the 19th century acclimatization enthusiasts were largely cultural: "Western European settlers introduced many species throughout the world because they wanted birds from their homelands in their new environs."

Impact and the starlings

Though some starlings had been released before the Society was founded, they had not become well established and in 1890 and 1891 100 more were released. By the early 21st century, more than 200 million European Starlings had spread throughout the United States, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Their aggressive competition for nesting cavities has long been thought to be responsible for the collapse of some native bird populations, among them New York's state bird, the Eastern bluebird

Eastern Bluebird

The Eastern Bluebird, Sialia sialis, is a small thrush found in open woodlands, farmlands and orchards, and most recently can be spotted in suburban areas. It is the state bird of Missouri and New York....

, though some research has found that this is unlikely, except in the case of sapsucker

Sapsucker

The Sapsuckers form the genus Sphyrapicus within the woodpecker family Picidae. All are found in North America.As their name implies, sapsuckers feed primarily on the sap of trees, moving among different tree and shrub species on a seasonal basis...

s. The US government still believes the starlings' competition for nesting cavities is harmful to native bird populations and says they also cause crop damage.

Largely because of the spread of the European Starling, a 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle (deriding the introduction of Fallow Deer

Fallow Deer

The Fallow Deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. This common species is native to western Eurasia, but has been introduced widely elsewhere. It often includes the rarer Persian Fallow Deer as a subspecies , while others treat it as an entirely different species The Fallow...

 to the Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes National Seashore is a park preserve located on the Point Reyes Peninsula in Marin County, California, USA. As a national seashore, it is maintained by the US National Park Service as a nationally important nature preserve within which existing agricultural uses are allowed to continue...

) called the society "the canonic cautionary tale of biological pollution."

The raucous starling remains one of the most publicly-reviled of North America's invasive species

Invasive species

"Invasive species", or invasive exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions....

, and has been blamed for helping to spread invasive plants like English Ivy and disrupting air traffic when in large flocks.