<P> The common starling was introduced to Australia to consume insect pests of farm crops . Early settlers looked forward to their arrival, believing that common starlings were also important for the pollination of flax, a major agricultural product . Nest - boxes for the newly released birds were placed on farms and near crops . The common starling was introduced to Melbourne in 1857 and Sydney two decades later . By the 1880s, established populations were present in the southeast of the country thanks to the work of acclimatisation committees . By the 1920s, common starlings were widespread throughout Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, but by then they were considered to be pests . Although common starlings were first sighted in Albany, Western Australia in 1917, they have been largely prevented from spreading to the state . The wide and arid Nullarbor Plain provides a natural barrier and control measures have been adopted that have killed 55,000 birds over three decades . The common starling has also colonised Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island . </P> <P> The early settlers in New Zealand cleared the bush and found their newly planted crops were invaded by hordes of caterpillars and other insects deprived of their previous food sources . Native birds were not habituated to living in close proximity to man so the common starling was introduced from Europe along with the House Sparrow to control the pests . It was first brought over in 1862 by the Nelson Acclimatisation Society and other introductions followed . The birds soon became established and are now found all over the country including the subtropical Kermadec Islands to the north and the equally distant Macquarie Island far to the south . </P> <P> After two failed attempts, about 60 common starlings were released in 1890 into New York's Central Park by Eugene Schieffelin . He was president of the American Acclimatization Society, which tried to introduce every bird species mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare into North America . About the same date, the Portland Song Bird Club released 35 pairs of common starlings in Portland, Oregon . These birds became established but disappeared around 1902 . Common starlings reappeared in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1940s and these birds were probably descendants of the 1890 Central Park introduction . The original 60 birds have since swelled in number to 150 million, occupying an area extending from southern Canada and Alaska to Central America . </P> <P> The common starling appears to have arrived in Fiji in 1925 on Ono - i - lau and Vatoa islands . It may have colonised from New Zealand via Raoul in the Kermadec Islands where it is abundant, that group being roughly equidistant between New Zealand and Fiji . Its spread in Fiji has been limited, and there are doubts about the population's viability . Tonga was colonised at about the same date and the birds there have been slowly spreading north through the group . </P>

Where do european starlings live in the us
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