shortly after the first Latter-day Saints settled in the Salt Lake Valley in what later became known as the Territory of Utah, a plague of crickets swarmed their crops. As the tale goes, they prayed, and God sent seagulls from the nearby Great Salt Lake, whose existence reminded the settlers of Israel and the Dead Sea. “By thousands and tens of thousands, (the seagulls) began to devour them up … until the land was cleared of crickets, and our crops were
