Seagulls Devour Crickets and Save the Saints from Famine in the Salt Lake Valley

In the spring and summer of 1849, Aroet Lucious Hale was struggling to raise a crop of wheat near what is now the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake City. He had planted carefully, watered faithfully, and was watching the wheat grow when disaster struck:

'About the middle of June, I went to water my wheat and to my surprise it was covered with crickets. Myriads of big black crickets came down from the mountains and began to sweep away fields of grain. I lost the most of my little crop of wheat. The most of the barley grain near the city was saved by immense flocks of seagulls which came and devoured the crickets. This was considered a God send and many escaped what might have been a severe famine.'

Hale added a striking detail confirming the supernatural quality of the event: 'One thing singular, the oldest mountaineers and trappers said that they never saw a seagull until after the Mormons settled this country.'

A fine of five dollars was placed on the head of anyone who killed a seagull, in recognition of the birds' role as divinely sent deliverers. The seagull miracle is one of the most celebrated pioneer miracles and is commemorated today by the California Gull's status as the state bird of Utah.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness's own words — Priddy Meeks, who fought the crickets in 1848):

The crickets came so thick that they would cover the ground and they would eat up our garden truck and everything we had planted. We fought them until we were exhausted and gave up in despair. We had no way to kill them. They would eat the grain and the vegetables and everything that was green. We were in a starving condition and we did not know what to do. We prayed to the Lord to deliver us from this plague. At that instant, I heard the voice of fowles flying overhead, that I was not acquainted with. I looked up and saw a flock of seven gulls. In a few minits there was another larger flock passed over. They came fast and more of them untill the heavens were darkened with them, and lit down in the valley till the earth was black with them, and they would eat crickets and throw them up again and fill themselves again and right away throw them up again. A little before sundown, they left for Salt Lake, for they roosted on a sand bar. A little after sunrise in the morning, they came back again and continued that course untill they had devoured the crickets. They would eat them until they were full and then vomit them up and eat more. I guess this circumstance changed our feeling considerable for the better.