The Four Pests campaign (Chinese: 除四害; pinyin: Chú Sì Hài), 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 smash sparrows campaign (Chinese: 打麻雀运动; pinyin: dǎ máquè yùndòng) or eliminate sparrows campaign (Chinese: 消灭麻雀运动; pinyin: xiāomiè máquè yùndòng), which resulted in severe ecological imbalance, being one of the causes of Th...
