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Shakespeare’s StarlingsLiterary History and the Fictions of Invasiveness

Shakespeare’s StarlingsLiterary History and the Fictions of Invasiveness Scientists, environmentalists, and nature writers often report that all common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in North America descend from a flock released in New York City in 1890 by Eugene Schieffelin, a man obsessed with importing all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare. This article uses the methods of literary history to investigate this popular anecdote. Today starlings are much despised as an invasive species that displaces native birds and does almost a billion dollars worth of damage to agriculture annually. Because of the starling’s pest status, the Schieffelin story is considered a cautionary tale about the dangers of ecological ignorance. Diving into the history of the Schieffelin story reveals, however, that it is almost entirely fictional. Tracing how its elements emerged and changed over a century of retelling clarifies how the story came to shore up uncertainties in the bird’s environmental history and to distract from the lack of data supporting the starling’s supposedly disastrous impacts. In explaining how a fiction repeated over time attained the status of fact in debates about invasive species, this literary history suggests humanistic methods can serve as useful tools for understanding the value-laden narratives underpinning environmental attitudes and practices today. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Environmental Humanities Duke University Press

Shakespeare’s StarlingsLiterary History and the Fictions of Invasiveness

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Copyright
© 2021 Lauren Fugate and John MacNeill Miller
ISSN
2201-1919
eISSN
2201-1919
DOI
10.1215/22011919-9320167
Publisher site
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Abstract

Scientists, environmentalists, and nature writers often report that all common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in North America descend from a flock released in New York City in 1890 by Eugene Schieffelin, a man obsessed with importing all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare. This article uses the methods of literary history to investigate this popular anecdote. Today starlings are much despised as an invasive species that displaces native birds and does almost a billion dollars worth of damage to agriculture annually. Because of the starling’s pest status, the Schieffelin story is considered a cautionary tale about the dangers of ecological ignorance. Diving into the history of the Schieffelin story reveals, however, that it is almost entirely fictional. Tracing how its elements emerged and changed over a century of retelling clarifies how the story came to shore up uncertainties in the bird’s environmental history and to distract from the lack of data supporting the starling’s supposedly disastrous impacts. In explaining how a fiction repeated over time attained the status of fact in debates about invasive species, this literary history suggests humanistic methods can serve as useful tools for understanding the value-laden narratives underpinning environmental attitudes and practices today.

Journal

Environmental Humanities – Duke University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2021

References

  • American Acclimatization Society
  • Bird Damage to Select Fruit Crops: The Cost of Damage and the Benefits of Control in Five States
    Anderson, Aaron M. Lindell, C. A. Moxcey, Karen M. Siemer, W. F. Linz, George M. Curtis, P. D. Carroll, J. E., et al
  • Climates of Opinion: Acclimatization in Nineteenth-Century France and England
    Anderson, Warwick
  • European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
    Cabe, Paul R.
  • A Plague of Starlings
    Cantwell, Robert
  • Efficacy of European Starling Control to Reduce Salmonella enterica Contamination in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation in the Texas Panhandle
    Carlson, James C. Engeman, Richard M. Hyatt, Doreene R. Gilliland, Rickey L. DeLiberto, Thomas J. Clark, Larry Bodenchuk, Michael J. Linz, George M.
  • The Role of European Starlings in the Spread of Coccidia within Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
    Carlson, James C. Linz, George M. Ballweber, Lora R. Elmore, Stacey A. Pettit, Susan E. Franklin, Alan B.
  • How about Citizenship Papers for the Starling?
    Carson, Rachel
  • “Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden May Go
  • The European Starling as an American Citizen
    Chapman, Frank M.
  • The European Starling as an American Citizen
    Chapman, Frank M.
  • Opinion: The Invasive Ideology
    Chew, Matthew K. Carroll, Scott P.
  • Class of 2017—SRMP4Life
  • Starlings: Birds of a Feather
    Contreras, Patricia
  • Invasion Biology 1958–2005: The Pursuit of Science and Conservation
    Davis, Mark A. McMahon, Sean M.
  • Scientists Study the Starling Invasion Unleashed on America by a Shakespeare Fan
    Debczak, Michele
  • The Status of the Urban House Sparrow Passer domesticus in North-Western Europe: A Review
    De Laet, Jenny Summers-Smith, J. D.
  • DRC-1339 (Starlicide)
  • The Present Status of the English Sparrow Problem in America
    Estabrook, A. H.
  • Eugene Schieffelin
  • Eugene Schieffelin Dead: Succumbs to Paralysis at Newport after an Illness of Three Weeks
  • The Economics of Starling Damage
    Feare, C. J. Wright, E. N. Inglis, I. R. Feare, C. J.
  • Roots of the New Conservation Movement
    Fleming, Donald
  • The Origins of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria: Practical Science in the Wake of the Gold Rush
    Gillbank, Linden
  • Environmental Correlates of Genetic Variation in the Invasive European Starling in North America
    Hofmeister, Natalie R. Werner, Scott J. Lovette, Irby J.
  • Introduction of European Birds
  • Bye Bye Blackbird: USDA Acknowledges a Hand in One Mass Bird Death
    Johnson, Patrick
  • Framing and Reframing in Invasion Biology
    Keulartz, Jozef van der Weele, Cor
  • European Starlings and Their Effect on Cavity-Nesting Birds
    Koenig, Walter D.
  • European Starlings: A Review of an Invasive Species with Far-Reaching Impacts
    Linz, George M. Homan, H. Jeffrey Gaukler, Shannon M. Penry, Linda B. Bleier, William J. W. Witmer, Gary Pitt, Will C. Fagerstone, Kathleen A.
  • If Starlings Are a Problem You Can Blame Shakespeare
    MacKay, Barry Kent
  • The Bard’s Bird; or, the Slings and Arrows of Avicultural Hegemony: A Tragicomedy in Five Acts
    Mitchell, Charles Nagy, Kelsi JohnsonPhillip David II
  • Frank Michler Chapman, 1864–1945
    Murphy, Robert Cushman
  • The Birds of Shakespeare Cause US Trouble
    O’Brien, Jane
  • Acclimatizing the World: A History of the Paradigmatic Colonial Science
    Osborne, Michael A.
  • The Danger of Introducing Noxious Animals and Birds
    Palmer, T. S. Hill, George William
  • A Review of Economic Ornithology in the United States
    Palmer, T. S. Hill, George William
  • A Day of Starling Revelations
    Pancake, John
  • Birds That Are New Yorkers
    Peattie, Donald Culross McKibben, Bill
  • Shakespeare and the Great Starling Disaster
    Phillips, Louis
  • Environmental and Economic Costs of Nonindigenous Species in the United States
    Pimental, David Lach, Lori Zuniga, Rodolfo Morrison, Doug
  • Back Story: Migration, Assimilation, and Invasion in the Nineteenth Century
    Ritvo, Harriet Frawley, Jodi McCalman, Iain
  • Invasion/Invasive
    Ritvo, Harriet
  • American Shakespeare Clubs and Commemoration
    Schiel, Katherine
  • Three Eras of Environmental Concern
    Sellers, Christopher C.
  • Shakespeare and Starlings
  • Shakespeare Garden
  • Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
    Shelley, Mary Fairclough, Peter
  • Confronting Introduced Species: A Form of Xenophobia?
    Simberloff, Daniel
  • Is the Large-Scale Decline of the Starling Related to Local Changes in Demography?
    Smith, Henrik G. Ryegård, Annika Svensson, Sören
  • Extended Use of Starlicide in Reducing Bird Damage in Southeastern Feedlots
    Stickley, Allen R.Jr.
  • The Aliens Have Landed! Reflections on the Rhetoric of Biological Invasions
    Subramaniam, Banu
  • European Starling, the Bard’s Bird
    Taft, Dave
  • The Bird Nobody Wants
    Teale, Edwin Way
  • In Defense of the Pesky Starling
    Teale, Edwin Way
  • The Upsetting Mr. Schieffelin
    Teale, Edwin Way
  • Acclimatisation and Environmental Renovation: Australian Perspectives on George Perkins Marsh
    Tyrrell, Ian
  • Dean of American Ornithologists: The Multiple Legacies of Frank M. Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History
    Vuilleumier, François
  • The European Starling
    Warren, B. H.
  • The Epic 1959 Battle between a New York Town and Thousands of Starlings
    Wright, Andy
  • The Invasive Species We Can Blame on Shakespeare
    Zielinski, Sarah
  • American Acclimatization Society
  • Bird Damage to Select Fruit Crops: The Cost of Damage and the Benefits of Control in Five States
    Anderson, Aaron M. Lindell, C. A. Moxcey, Karen M. Siemer, W. F. Linz, George M. Curtis, P. D. Carroll, J. E., et al
  • Climates of Opinion: Acclimatization in Nineteenth-Century France and England
    Anderson, Warwick
  • European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
    Cabe, Paul R.
  • A Plague of Starlings
    Cantwell, Robert
  • Efficacy of European Starling Control to Reduce Salmonella enterica Contamination in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation in the Texas Panhandle
    Carlson, James C. Engeman, Richard M. Hyatt, Doreene R. Gilliland, Rickey L. DeLiberto, Thomas J. Clark, Larry Bodenchuk, Michael J. Linz, George M.
  • The Role of European Starlings in the Spread of Coccidia within Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
    Carlson, James C. Linz, George M. Ballweber, Lora R. Elmore, Stacey A. Pettit, Susan E. Franklin, Alan B.
  • How about Citizenship Papers for the Starling?
    Carson, Rachel
  • “Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden May Go
  • The European Starling as an American Citizen
    Chapman, Frank M.
  • The European Starling as an American Citizen
    Chapman, Frank M.
  • Opinion: The Invasive Ideology
    Chew, Matthew K. Carroll, Scott P.
  • Class of 2017—SRMP4Life
  • Starlings: Birds of a Feather
    Contreras, Patricia
  • Invasion Biology 1958–2005: The Pursuit of Science and Conservation
    Davis, Mark A. McMahon, Sean M.
  • Scientists Study the Starling Invasion Unleashed on America by a Shakespeare Fan
    Debczak, Michele
  • The Status of the Urban House Sparrow Passer domesticus in North-Western Europe: A Review
    De Laet, Jenny Summers-Smith, J. D.
  • DRC-1339 (Starlicide)
  • The Present Status of the English Sparrow Problem in America
    Estabrook, A. H.
  • Eugene Schieffelin
  • Eugene Schieffelin Dead: Succumbs to Paralysis at Newport after an Illness of Three Weeks
  • The Economics of Starling Damage
    Feare, C. J. Wright, E. N. Inglis, I. R. Feare, C. J.
  • Roots of the New Conservation Movement
    Fleming, Donald
  • The Origins of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria: Practical Science in the Wake of the Gold Rush
    Gillbank, Linden
  • Environmental Correlates of Genetic Variation in the Invasive European Starling in North America
    Hofmeister, Natalie R. Werner, Scott J. Lovette, Irby J.
  • Introduction of European Birds
  • Bye Bye Blackbird: USDA Acknowledges a Hand in One Mass Bird Death
    Johnson, Patrick
  • Framing and Reframing in Invasion Biology
    Keulartz, Jozef van der Weele, Cor
  • European Starlings and Their Effect on Cavity-Nesting Birds
    Koenig, Walter D.
  • European Starlings: A Review of an Invasive Species with Far-Reaching Impacts
    Linz, George M. Homan, H. Jeffrey Gaukler, Shannon M. Penry, Linda B. Bleier, William J. W. Witmer, Gary Pitt, Will C. Fagerstone, Kathleen A.
  • If Starlings Are a Problem You Can Blame Shakespeare
    MacKay, Barry Kent
  • The Bard’s Bird; or, the Slings and Arrows of Avicultural Hegemony: A Tragicomedy in Five Acts
    Mitchell, Charles Nagy, Kelsi JohnsonPhillip David II
  • Frank Michler Chapman, 1864–1945
    Murphy, Robert Cushman
  • The Birds of Shakespeare Cause US Trouble
    O’Brien, Jane
  • Acclimatizing the World: A History of the Paradigmatic Colonial Science
    Osborne, Michael A.
  • The Danger of Introducing Noxious Animals and Birds
    Palmer, T. S. Hill, George William
  • A Review of Economic Ornithology in the United States
    Palmer, T. S. Hill, George William
  • A Day of Starling Revelations
    Pancake, John
  • Birds That Are New Yorkers
    Peattie, Donald Culross McKibben, Bill
  • Shakespeare and the Great Starling Disaster
    Phillips, Louis
  • Environmental and Economic Costs of Nonindigenous Species in the United States
    Pimental, David Lach, Lori Zuniga, Rodolfo Morrison, Doug
  • Back Story: Migration, Assimilation, and Invasion in the Nineteenth Century
    Ritvo, Harriet Frawley, Jodi McCalman, Iain
  • Invasion/Invasive
    Ritvo, Harriet
  • American Shakespeare Clubs and Commemoration
    Schiel, Katherine
  • Three Eras of Environmental Concern
    Sellers, Christopher C.
  • Shakespeare and Starlings
  • Shakespeare Garden
  • Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
    Shelley, Mary Fairclough, Peter
  • Confronting Introduced Species: A Form of Xenophobia?
    Simberloff, Daniel
  • Is the Large-Scale Decline of the Starling Related to Local Changes in Demography?
    Smith, Henrik G. Ryegård, Annika Svensson, Sören
  • Extended Use of Starlicide in Reducing Bird Damage in Southeastern Feedlots
    Stickley, Allen R.Jr.
  • The Aliens Have Landed! Reflections on the Rhetoric of Biological Invasions
    Subramaniam, Banu
  • European Starling, the Bard’s Bird
    Taft, Dave
  • The Bird Nobody Wants
    Teale, Edwin Way
  • In Defense of the Pesky Starling
    Teale, Edwin Way
  • The Upsetting Mr. Schieffelin
    Teale, Edwin Way
  • Acclimatisation and Environmental Renovation: Australian Perspectives on George Perkins Marsh
    Tyrrell, Ian
  • Dean of American Ornithologists: The Multiple Legacies of Frank M. Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History
    Vuilleumier, François
  • The European Starling
    Warren, B. H.
  • The Epic 1959 Battle between a New York Town and Thousands of Starlings
    Wright, Andy
  • The Invasive Species We Can Blame on Shakespeare
    Zielinski, Sarah