The extermination of sparrows is also known as Smash Sparrows Campaign () or Eliminate Sparrows Campaign (). It caused severe ecological imbalance; it was one of the causes of the Great Chinese Famine. In 1960. Mao Zedong ended the campaign against sparrows and redirected the fourth focus to bed bugs. Only after Mao Zedong had died, in 1976, did the official Chinese press agency announce that sparrows were more useful than harmful. The government took measures to increase the sparrow population in the province of Shandong.