Posted by:
badseed
(
)
Date: January 13, 2011 12:46PM
It's called nature and has is only seen as a specific miracle from God for his faithful Mormon followers by those faithful Mormon followers themselves. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
http://www.lds-mormon.com/seagulls.shtmlChapter 8 of New Mormon History is entitled: "Mormons, Crickets, and Gulls: a New Look at an Old Story" by William G. Hartley
In this heavily referenced essay, Hartley (a BYU professor of history and church history) makes the following points:
1) The gulls were not strangers to the valley. They are natural enemies to various insects including crickets.
2) Gulls habitually regurgitate the indigestible parts of insects they have swallowed.
3) Gulls did not arrive until after severe cricket damage had already occurred in 1848.
4) In 1848, Mormon crops were seriously damaged by three enemies--frost, crickets, and drought. The Gulls dealt with only one problem and too late at that.
5) The "miraculousness" of the event was not clearly recognized by contemporaries (including newspapers, diaries, and official church correspondence).
6) Since 1848, gulls frequently have been on the wing to feast on crickets and other insects, making the 1848 encounter hardly unique.
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon060.htm"In the first year of the Mormon settlement in Utah, a plague of locusts (Mormon crickets) threatened to wipe out their crops. God responded with a "miracle", sending an army of seagulls to devour the insects.
This one is true -- however the miracle part is somewhat embellished. The locusts have a seven-year hibernation cycle, and unfortunately the early settlers hit it on the end of the seventh year. For mutual protection, they had made the mistake of planting all their fields together. Therefore, the locust attack was concentrated in one spot in the valley. And the seagulls, which by their fossil remains have been at the Great Salt Lake for over 2,000 years, simply enjoyed their every-seven-year feast. They still do -- only now it's spread over thousands of square miles. (2001 was a bad year, 2008 is next)."
And this from 2009:
http://www.abc4.com/mostpopular/story/Mormon-Miracle-II-Did-seagulls-save-Tooele-County/qeS_gEGvWUS9XBMKbEWydA.cspxThe last line say it all.
"The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food said that this happens naturally from time to time."