American Acclimatization Society

The American Acclimatization Society was a group founded in New York City in 1871 dedicated to introducing European flora and fauna into North America for both economic and cultural reasons.

[2] Wildlife scientist John Marzluff writes that the motives of the 19th-century acclimatization enthusiasts were largely cultural: "Western European settlers introduced many species throughout the world because they wanted birds from their homelands in their new environs.

The group's annual meeting held at the Great New York Aquarium in 1877[4] reported that the release of 50 pairs of English skylarks into Central Park had only been a partial success, since most had flown across the East River to take up residence at Newtown and Canarsie in Brooklyn.

The meeting adjourned with the group resolved to introduce more chaffinches, skylarks, European robins and tits—"birds which were useful to the farmer and contributed to the beauty of the groves and fields"—in the city.

[11] Largely because of the spread of the European starling, a 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle (deriding the introduction of fallow deer to the Point Reyes National Seashore) called the society "the canonic cautionary tale of biological pollution.

A flock of starlings in Denmark . Flocks of this size and larger are common in North America following the successful introduction of the species in the 19th century.