Crow Busters Forum

SHANEDOG · Guru

BOB,WHY IN THE CITIES?

Bob · Guru

Shane,

The crows have learned over the past 40 to 50 years that they don't get shot at night (by the roost hounds) if they roost either in a big city or a smaller city that is an incorporated village where "no shooting is allowed" now when they venture "outside the city limits" to feed they are fair game.

This has happened in more places than I care to mention over the past 40 odd years. They get burned out of the roosts by fellas who to put it quite plainly "are to ignorant to know any better"

This is why Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma is a thing of the past. This is why the roost right here in Hutchinson, Kansas is a thing of the past. After they burned them out of the Hutchinson roost they moved right into the city of Hutchinson to get away from the shooting at night.

Bob A.

chip · Guru

But don't the people of Hutchinson complain about the noise and the mess???

nhcrowshooter · Guru

They allow hunting and shooting at night in KS and OK?

We have seen an increase of crows roosting in urban areas of NH and night shooting has never been allowed.

What has changed is farming and farms have dwindled to almost nothing, small town open dumps have disappeared replaced with large well managed and covered landfills. Electrification of urban areas has increased with more lighting.

I think they roost in cities for less harrassment in general, more easily available food sources, fewer natrual predators and they like the security of lit up urban areas where they can see any threat 24/7 and in the winter urban areas are generally warmer as cities create a heat sink.

Bob · Guru

Hello NH,

Out here crows have no rights unfortunately. Now the idiots can not shoot them in an urban area that is an incorporated village at any time, day or night.

While the citys have more shelter from the elements outside it is my observation over the years that it's the night shooting in the roosts that pushes these birds into the urban areas.

I tried to get some legislation where they could make a law "no shooting in the roost" but it just didn't gain any traction out here.

In the two photos above are two differen't crow roosts out in the country where the locals do not bother them. The reason is because these places are off the beaton path and it took some work finding these places.

I remember years ago there was a roost of perhaps 25,000 that was 3 miles west of Miami Oklahoma. I hunted there for years and stayed right in the town of Miami at a motel. The locals had no idea there was a roost just 3 miles from town. Now there were a couple of fellas that did hunt them down there but they were not roost hounds and the crows stayed there for many years. I never found out if these guys were locals or out of state hunters like me.

Bob A.

Bob · Guru

Hi Chip,

Yup, you got it!

After about two years in a row the citizens of Hutchinson wanted them outa here!

So they shot roman candles at them and set off all sorts of piro nechnics to run em outa Hutchinson. What did the crows do? They learned from this and just flew down the Arkansas River to Wichita, Kansas where they roosted in a huge graveyard inside the city limits! Nobody bothered them there because it was in a section of town where they were not bothering anyone.

My old crow hunting mentor and I had some grand shooting at these birds outside the city limits of Wichita for 21 years. Some of the farming changed and there was not enough feed to support there numbers so they moved again in 2000. It was not shooting in the roost that moved them, it was the availability of feed that moved them.

Bob A.

nhcrowshooter · Guru

From Cornell University:

Why have these roosts recently moved into cities?

A number of possible explanations exist for the relatively recent influx of roosting crows into urban areas. The birds are not making drastic shifts in behavior; crows have been gathering into winter roosts for as long as there have been crows. We know, for example, from work done in the 1930's by John Emlen at Cornell University that approximately 25,000 crows were gathering in a roost near Auburn, NY in the winter of 1932-33, and that a large roost was present in 1911-12 (Emlen, J. T., Jr., 1938, Midwinter distribution of the American Crow in New York State, Ecology 19: 264-275). The big difference is that they were roosting 3 miles south of town then and are roosting smack in downtown Auburn today. Any increase in size of the roost would be imperceptible, compared to the change of locale.

A couple of things may have worked together to get crows into town (both for nesting and roosting):

1) The 1972 extension of the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 to cover crows. At this point the hunting of crows became regulated. No longer could anyone anywhere take shots at crows, but had to do so (theoretically) within proscribed guidelines and hunting seasons. It is possible that this change may have resulted in the decrease of shooting pressure on crows, allowing them to become more tolerant of the presence of people.

2) A prohibition on the discharge of firearms within city/village limits. It is conceivable that crows somehow stumbled across the fact that they could not be shot in cities because of local ordinances against shooting in town. So, in fact crows might have somehow figured out that the best thing to do to live with their enemy was to get as close as possible, not stay away. Many crow hunters do most of their hunting along flight lines of crows moving to roost. These flight lines through urban areas are protected, those in rural areas are not.

Once crows overcame the urban barrier, a number of possible advantages could extend to them:

a) Cities are warmer than rural areas. In most places a difference of 5-10 degrees F exists, sometimes referred to as a "heat bubble" over cities. Because roosting is a winter phenomenon, warmer spots could be important.

b) Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) populations should be lower in urban areas. Next to people with guns, Great Horned Owls pose the largest danger to an adult crow. Great Horned Owls take adults as well as nestling crows with great regularity. (That is why crows hate them so much!) Owls probably are regular attendants at crow roosts, as owls wake up as the crows are heading into the roosts, and sleeping crows should be pretty easy picking.

c) Artificial light assist crows in watching for owls. I have noticed that many urban crow roosts are not located in nice dense trees where the crows would have microclimate advantages, such as protection from wind or cold. Rather, the crows perch out on the tips of bare branches of leafless deciduous trees. I was quite surprised by this at first, but then I noticed that many (most?) roosts are located near sources of bright illumination, such as streetlights and parking lot lights, like the lights at the Auburn prison and Syracuse University. It makes sense for crows to like "nightlights" to protect them from their biggest bogeyman, the Great Horned Owl. Crows don't see well at night; owls do. Crows near street light could see approaching owls. Also, if a crow gets scared out of its roost in the middle of the night (presumably by an owl taking crows), in lighted urban areas the crows can see where the predator is, and perhaps more importantly, can see to find another perch. You can imagine that flying blindly into the dark is not something any bird would choose to do. I was surprised at the amount of activity at the Auburn roost well after dark. The crows were still making a lot of noise and even flying from tree to tree. In other roosts I have watched that were in darker locations the crows quieted down rather quickly and no movements between trees were seen shortly after complete darkness.

d) Urban areas provide large trees for roosts. In many places some of the largest trees to be found are in urban areas. Many trees in parks and cemeteries were protected from the severe logging of the end of the last century, and are some of the oldest trees around. These large trees may be especially attractive to crows.

nhcrowshooter · Guru

From the National Wildlife Federation:

Why do crows roost in cities?

Urban living offers crows several possible advantages. Cities are often 5 to 10 degrees F warmer than rural areas, an advantage in cold weather, and may offer protection from human hunters. Great horned owls, which frequently prey on crows, presumably number fewer in urban areas. Artificial light may assist crows in watching for owls at night, and cities may provide some of the largest roost trees in a given area.

nhcrowshooter · Guru

From Penn State University:

By roosting in urban areas at night, they’re protected from their main predator, the great horned owl; they’re well-lit so they can see each other and chat and move around at night; it’s warmer. The crows know a good thing when they’ve got one. Natural selection favors the city dwellers.”

http://www.rps.psu.edu/indepth/crows.html

SHANEDOG · Guru

Thank NH!! Great info!! smile

SHANEDOG · Guru

nhcrowshooter wrote:
From Penn State University:
By roosting in urban areas at night, they’re protected from their main predator, the great horned owl; they’re well-lit so they can see each other and chat and move around at night; it’s warmer. The crows know a good thing when they’ve got one. Natural selection favors the city dwellers.”
http://www.rps.psu.edu/indepth/crows.html

You PA boys should help these guys with their problem!! biggrin

Bob · Guru

Hi NH,

Great Horned Owls do kill crows, while this is quite true it is also true that they don't kill 1/2 of one percent of the total population. When these wildlife biologists write these papers about crows moving into the cities because the lights protect them from Great Horned Owls is laughable in my opinion. The reason this does not hold water is because lights or no lights, the crows are dead meat if an owl wants a nice crow dinner.

They mentioned that crows can not see well in the dark? Years ago Jim Lundquist and I would be mixing high balls with some ice in his station wagon as we watched the village idiots trying to shoot crows way past sundown. This is what happens when you have two crow hunters who have no life and consider this cheap entertainment. Jim and I would watch swarms of crows (thousands at a time) coming into the roost when you could barely see outside. The crows were no fools, they just waited until you couldn't see to shoot before they moved in! They didn't seem to have any difficulty finding a place to perch way past sundown. You could barely see birds on the sky line but it was pitch black below the horizon in the roost. The real problem came when these fools would shoot blindly into the trees in the dark of night and couldn't see what they were shooting at, this is what drives the crows out of a roost in most cases.

Bob A.

SHANEDOG · Guru

Bob

I think where you are that would be the case,night shooting the roost,could change their behavior. But this is libral New England,Knowone shoots crows, let alone shoot roosts at night. You start shooting after dark up here and the law will be on you,I would guess this was also the case as far back as 75 years. After all You grew up in New York State right? Did you ever see people roost shoot at night in New York State?

It has to be ambient heat given off by the urban area.

chip · Guru

I can't imagine somebody tryin to shoot crows at night!!!! It just don't make sense to me, Wheres the fun in it??? Shane I guess Bob A would now officialy be considered a Red Leg Back in the day Huh??? LoL biggrin About ten years ago I had an exec at work that told me to remove a small sticker off the window of my truck. It was a rebel flag. It was only about 2 ny 3 inches. I told this woman that, to me the flag represented Heritage not hate. She still tried to write me up. My union shoved it down her throat. Needless to say it always reflected on my quarterly evaluations By the way she was a Square head.LOL!!! biggrin

Bob · Guru

Hi Shane,

While the larger towns do provide a much better wind break during a cold winter night and there is no roost harrassment I can see why the cities are so appealing to the crows.

Your point is well taken Shawn.

However a lot depends on the numbers of crows roosting in a town. Auburn, New York had a crow population of 25,000 crows in the early to mid 1930's. Now some 70 odd years later the crow population grew to 60,000 odd crows in the town of Auburn during the fall & winter months. I hunted crows around Auburn with my old pal Jerry Byroade. Then in 2006 they had enough with all the crows in Auburn, New York and started to use "Hazing" or piro techniques to drive them out of the city. They still didn't drive all of them out but they got rid of the majority of them. What did the crows do? Same thing as the Hutchinson crows did back in the 1980's, they just moved to another town!

When I mentioned that it depends on the number of crows roosting in a town, what I meant by that was that if you have anywhere from several hundred to perhaps a thousand birds that does not require the feed that a much larger population does. This is why many of the crows that roosted in Wichita, KS years ago no longer roost there because the feed changed and could no longer support there numbers.

Bob A.

Bob · Guru

Hi Chip,

When you said "where is the fun in it" you are looking at it like a sportsman, these guys are not sportsman, they are lazy slobs who are just to ignorant to know any better.

Bob A.

bulpup · Veteran Member

Funny I had found this story over the weekend. My wife was in Marths's Vineyard and her group was just astounded by the number of crows there.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100216/OPINION/2160304/-1/NEWSMAP

-- Edited by bulpup on Tuesday 30th of August 2011 03:23:10 PM

chip · Guru

Bulpup Are you serious!!!! Somebody do something about Edie Ray. I would love to go to that meeting!!! I would not miss it for the world!!! I love this generation of young ignorant "educated " biologist. I can't even type im so mad after reading That liberal Nazi crap. For God sake shoot the dam plovers and build condo's on the beach!!! That will put thousands of people to work and drive the crows south so I can kill'em by the hundreds.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bulpup · Veteran Member

Funny id'n it? Perfectly fine to poison some eggs but dont shoot ' em.

SHANEDOG · Guru

Guys this is just the tip of the iceburg!!